Microstructural and Mechanical Characterization of Magnesium-AZ31 Alloy Reinforced with Carbon Nanotubes and Nano-Hydroxyapatite

Strength-to-weight ratio has always been a key concern in the automotive and aerospace sector. Therefore in metal matrix composite (MMC), magnesium, aluminum, titanium always being preferred as matrix material. Although aluminum as a matrix material remain the first choice and is widely used by researchers because of the ease of fabrication in comparison to magnesium and titanium metal matrix composite. But magnesium is also an attractive material in terms of its properties as it is 36% and 78% lighter per unit volume than aluminum and iron respectively. Therefore the present study has investigated the effect of reinforcements such as Carbon Nanotubes (CNT) and Nano-Hydroxyapatite (nHA) on the mechanical properties of magnesium alloys based composites. Various properties have been studied, and found significant improvements were found in the developed composite. Furthermore, the microstructures of hybrid composite materials were examined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM).The chemical analysis and distribution of reinforcement were performed using EDX.