A study of hot rolling of 6061 aluminum alloy matrix composite reinforced with SnO2-coated Al18B4O33 whisker

The hot rolling of 6061Al matrix composites reinforced by Al18B4O33 whisker with different SnO2 coating contents has been carried out. The microstructures and tensile properties of hot-rolled composites have been studied. The result shows that whisker coating of SnO2 is an effective approach to improve hot-rolling formability of ABOw/6061Al composite. However, the excessive SnO2 coating content deteriorates the tensile properties of the rolled composites resulting from the interface weakening and thermal microcrack generation. The mass ratio of SnO2 to whisker of 1:40 was found to be the optimal SnO2 coating content to achieve the high tensile properties for the hot-rolled composites.