Pressure infiltration of Al and Al-12 wt% Si alloy into compacts of SiC and oxidized SiC particles

Oxidizing SiC particles is a common practice in the fabrication of SiC/Al composites through direct mixing of the liquid metal and the ceramic particles. This practice is addressed to reduce the reaction between the two materials. In a previous work it was concluded that oxidizing SiC particles scarcely affected the threshold pressure for infiltration of pure Al into compacts made of those particles. In this work we present a detailed study of this problem for infiltration of pure Al and the eutectic Al-Si alloy. Our results indicate that oxidizing of SiC particles does not affect significantly either the threshold pressure or the infiltration kinetics. This conclusion is equally valid for both pure Al and the eutectic alloy. C 2005 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc