Metal matrix composites for sustainable products: A review on current development

In recent decades, with the increase in demand for lightweight and high-strength materials for engineering applications, metal matrix composites (MMCs) are found to be a better replacement for conventional materials owing to their excellent characteristics such as high strength-to-weight ratio, high strength and stiffness, high thermal conductivity and low coefficient of thermal expansion. MMCs have been used in various applications such as automobile parts, aerospace and aircraft parts, jet engines, satellites, missiles, military, heavy constructions, NASA space shuttle, bridges, biomedical applications (i.e., medical devices, implants and surgical instruments) and so on. Extensive research has been carried out on the performance of MMCs for the development of sustainable products, which motivated us to review the current development in the processing, properties and applications of these composites. This work presents a systematic review of the mechanical properties (tensile strength and modulus, flexural strength and modulus, impact strength and hardness) of MMCs. Further, it comprises the processing techniques, strengthening mechanism and applications of MMCs along with the recommendations for future work and challenges. The mechanical performances of MMCs are found to be highly influenced by the properties of reinforcement and matrices, interfacial bonding, dispersion of particles into matrix, shape and size of particles, percentage content of particles and processing techniques. This review study suggests that MMCs have great potential to efficiently fulfill the present and future demands.