Compressive strength and impact resistance of Al2O3/Al composite structures fabricated by digital light processing

The combination of multi-materials is an alternative way to meet the diverse requirements for various applications. However, the processing difficulty especially in ceramic forming limited the structural innovations. In this paper, a combined methods of ceramic digital light processing (DLP) and metal infiltration is proposed to fabricate the Al2O3/Al composite structures with controllable ceramic skeletons. The interfacial, compressive and impact resistance properties were studied. The results showed that the Al2O3 grains were closely bonded, and no destructive defects occurred at the interface between Al2O3 and Al. The energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) results showed that the formation of protective phases contributed to the improvement of bonding strength. The compressive tests showed that the composite structures had better capabilities to absorb and resist the applied loads compared with Al structures. Finally, the impact resistance of the structures was discussed, the finite element analysis and the experimental results showed that the composite structures had advantages in dissipating the energy of incident objects and reducing the penetration depth. Based on these results, the damage model of Al2O3/Al structures was established, and the roles of different materials were revealed.