Laser-ultrasonic study of the local porosity of reactive cast aluminum-matrix composites

One of the most critical manufacturing defects of cast metal-matrix composites is a non-uniform porosity distribution over the composite volume. Unevenness of the distribution leads not only to local softening, but also plays a key role in the evolution of the damage process under the external loads. The goal of the study is to apply a new laser-ultrasonic method to in-situ study of a local porosity in reactive cast aluminum-matrix composites. The proposed method is based on statistical analysis of the amplitude distribution of backscattered broadband pulses of longitudinal ultrasonic waves in the studied materials. Laser excitation and piezoelectric detection of ultrasound were carried out using a laser-ultrasonic transducer. Two series of reactive cast aluminum-matrix composites were analyzed: reinforced by in situ synthesized Al₃Ti intermetallic particles in different volume concentrations and by Al₃Ti added with synthetic diamond nanoparticles. It is shown that for both series of the composites, the amplitude distribution of backscattered ultrasonic pulses is approximated by the Gaussian probability distribution applicable for statistics of large number of independent random variables. The empirical dependence of the half-width of this distribution on the local porosity in composites of two series is approximated by the same nearly linear function regardless of the size and fraction of reinforcing particles. This function was used to derive the formula for calculation of the local porosity in the studied composites. The developed technique seems to be promising in revealing potentially dangerous domains with high porosity in reactive-cast metal-matrix composites.

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