Abstract
Recently, aluminium (Al) based composites containing each carbon fibers (CF), such as carbon nanotubes (CNT), and vapor-growth carbon fibers (VGCF), are actively developed. These fibers have high thermal conductivities and high strengths. And then Al/VGCF composites fabricated using spark plasma sintering are known to have a high thermal conductivity. The composites are anticipated using for the application of heat exchangers. In this paper, an Al/CF composite are fabricated using sintering process. The relationship between microstructures and mechanical properties are considered using the sintering composites. First, an optimum sintering conditions of matrix in Al and Aluminum silicon eutectic alloy (Al-12Si) are considered, by measurement of porosity ratio, Vickers hardness test, and microscopic observation. And then, a relationship between microstructure of the composite and the hardness are considered. According to the experimental results, the composite with Al-12Si has lower porosity ratio than the composite without Al-12Si. The Vickers hardness correlates highly with the porosity ratio.
