Aluminium Composites - Background

A material with the manufacturability of aluminum, but with greater strength and stiffness,
is the dream of every designer, and this is what first drove material scientists to reinforce aluminum with continuous fibers. Like all continuous fiber metal composites, limitations associated with isotropy, thermo-mechanical (deformation) processing, joining and, above all, cost, gave birth to the idea of reinforcing aluminum with ceramic particles. DWA was at the forefront of this technology development, adopting particulate reinforced aluminum Metal-Matrix-Composites (Al MMCs) as it core technology in 1976.

Aluminum powder is produced by inert gas atomization, size classified to exacting standards and then blended with SiC particles. Blended MMC powders are security screened to eliminate the possibility of contamination and cold compacted inside hard tooling. Compacted powders are vacuum degassed to assure low retained hydrogen and hot-pressed to create fully dense Al MMC billets. All of these manufacturing steps require an exacting level of “frozen” process control to assure that the highest quality products are produced. This is the basis of all DWA Al MMC primary and secondary manufacturing processes.

Thanks to many years of internal development and government funding support, the robust processes in place at DWA assure the highest level of uncompromising quality for our products today and every day.