Carbon nanotubes-reinforced aluminium with improved yield strength and toughness

Among carbon nanotubes (CNTs) based composites, aluminium/CNTs ones are rather promising for weight sensitive applications, such as in aerospace field, thanks to the combination of the low weight and high stiffness and strength of the reinforcement. In this work, a self-assembled apparatus, named Pressure Assisted Fast Electric Sintering (PAFES), has been employed for the sintering of commercial micrometre size aluminium powders with multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). To do this effectively, much effort was devoted to the fundamental step of the CNTs dispersion and mixing in the Al powders by high energy milling.