Utilization of waste of Al - B fiber composites for obtaining new powder and sintered materials

Composite powder based on AlB has been obtained by crushing pieces of industrial-waste Al - B fiber composite material at room temperature. The original design of a high precision microhardness tester made it possible to estimate the properties of powder particles both in the near-surface layers and under them. The aluminum fraction in the powder was established to represent a new structurally nonhomogenous material with increased microhardness (1.5 GPa), which grows up to 4 GPa in the near-surface layers. This is caused by formation of defects and stable oxides on external and internal interfaces in the aluminum matrix during crushing. To optimize the process of AlB powder sintering, adhesion on clean and real Al - B and Al/Al interfaces at various temperatures was investigated. By sintering at 910 K, new ceramic materials have been obtained with a density of 2200 kg/m³ and a strength of 90 MPa.