Fabrication and mechanical properties of Cu-coatedwoven carbon fibers reinforced aluminum alloy composite

• Carbon fiber woven/aluminum alloy composite with laminar structure was fabricated.
• Good interface bonding was obtained by electroplating Cu coating on carbon fibers.
• The composite exhibited good ductility under compression and tensile conditions.
• Tensile strength and failure elongation of the composite was significantly enhanced.

Cu-coatedwoven carbon fibers/aluminum alloy composite (Cf/Al) was prepared by spark plasma sintering. Microstructure and mechanical properties of the composite were investigated. Microstructure observation indicates that the interface reaction is evidently inhibited by Cu coating. Woven carbon fibers are adhered to the matrix alloy by anchor locking effect of matrix alloy immersing into the interstices between carbon fibers. Under the quasi-static and dynamic compressive conditions, the composite exhibits excellent ductility even when the strain reaches 0.8. Adding carbon fibers into ZL205A alloy has no obvious influence on compressive flow stress of the composite. The compressive true stress–true strain curves show that the composite is a strain rate insensitive material. During the tensile tests, the elongation of the composite shows a sharp increase from 4.5% to 13.5% due to the adding of woven carbon fibers. Meanwhile, the tensile strength of the composite is increased slightly from 168 MPa to 202 MPa compared to that of ZL205A alloy. The good ductility of the composite is ascribed to the cracks deflection, fibers pulling out, debonding and breakage mechanisms.