Study on damping capacity of aluminum composite reinforced with in situ TiAl3 rod

Damping capacity of TiAl3 reinforced aluminum composite was investigated. The Mixed-Salt reaction method was employed to fabricate Al/TiAl3 composite. Samples of dimension 50 × 5 × 1 mm for damping measurement were obtained by spark machining. Dynamic mechanical thermal analyzer was employed to study the damping capacity of TiAl3 reinforced composites and aluminum base alloy over a temperature range of 30–300 °C. Experiment results show that the damping capacity of Al/TiAl3 composites is higher than that of Al matrix and is proportional to the volume fraction of TiAl3 reinforcement. The damping mechanisms associated with Al/TiAl3 composites were ascribed to dislocation damping at low testing temperatures, and to interface damping at relative high temperatures.