Journal of Alloys and Compounds 842 (2020) 155926

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Journal of Alloys and Compounds

journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jalcom

Liquidesolid reaction mechanism in AleZrO2(eB2O3) system and the

preparation of (aeAl2O3þZrB2/ZrAl3)/Al composites
Yihan Bian , Tong Gao *, Lingyu Liu , Guiliang Liu , Xiangfa Liu
Key Laboratory for LiquideSolid Structural Evolution and Processing of Materials, Ministry of Education, Shandong University, 17923 Jingshi Road, Jinan,
250061, PR China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Designing of Al based composites with enhanced high temperature strength is of great significance
Received 5 May 2020 nowadays. In this paper, an (aeAl2O3þZrB2)/Al composite has been prepared utilizing the liquidesolid
Received in revised form reaction of AleZrO2eB2O3 system, while an (aeAl2O3þZrAl3)/Al composite was synthesized through Al
1 June 2020
eZrO2 for comparison. Nanoesized Al2O3 and micron ZrAl3 particles have been inesitu formed in the
Accepted 3 June 2020
Available online 7 June 2020
(5.5Al2O3þ14ZrAl3)/Al composite, in which the coarse ZrAl3 particles are regarded harmful for the
composite’s properties. By promoting the reaction between ZrAl3 and B2O3, nanoesized Al2O3 and ZrB2
particles have been synthesized in the (13.8Al2O3þ9.2ZrB2)/Al composite. Based on the results of Xeray
Keywords:
Al composites
diffraction and electron backscatter diffraction, the Al matrix of the two extruded composites both prefer
Inesitu particles to form fiber texture (<111>Al//ED) in the longitudinal section, while the small difference between them
Preferred orientation is regarded relating to the distributing orientation of D023eZrAl3 particles. Compared with (Al2O3þZ-
Mechanical properties rAl3)/Al composite, the (Al2O3þZrB2)/Al composite exhibits more excellent properties. The ultimate
tensile strength can reach 463 MPa at 25  C and 188 MPa at 350  C.
© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction compound particles in AleZreO [16], AleTieO [17] and

Particle reinforced aluminum matrix composites (PAMCs) are
extensively accepted in various engineering applications due to the
synergistic combination of the Al matrix and reinforcing elements
[1e3]. Numerous attempts have been made by now to expand the
limit in the hardness, strength, plasticity, stiffness, and wear
resistance of PAMCs at room temperature [4e7]. Further, to satisfy
the requirement for higher efficiency and lower emission, the ul-
trahigh strength and better dimensional stability of PAMCs at
higher temperatures are crucial [8,9]. Unfortunately, most PAMCs
currently available suffer severe mechanical losses at temperatures
in excess of 350  C (>0.5Tm, Tm is melting point of Al). The reason
can be attributed to the rapid failure of the dislocation barrier
caused by the coarsening of the nanoeprecipitated phase and the
dynamic softening of the aluminum matrix [10,11].
To design PAMCs with good highetemperature strength,
different microstructures and mechanisms need tailoremade to
suppress the coarsening of the particles and strengthen the
aluminum matrix [12e15]. The inesitu ceramic and intermetallic
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: tgao@sdu.edu.cn (T. Gao).
AleZreOeB [18,19] systems are widely excavated due to their
controllable morphology, synergistic enhancement, and diversity
of configuration. Besides, their high heat resistance and the for-
mation of strong interfacial bonds with Al matrix show potential for
improvement in properties at elevated temperatures. For instance,
the Al2O3 inesitu synthesized in AleZrO2 system is a thermody-
namically stable aecrystal structure phase with high hardness,
high strength, and good chemical stability [20,21], while the
intermetallic compound ZrAl3 has high elastic modulus and high
melting temperature as well as good oxidation resistance [22],
which also makes it suitable as the strengthening phase in com-
posite. By designing the synthetic route, ZrAl3 can exhibit spherical,
flake or rod shapes, in which spherical L12eZrAl3 is normally used
as reinforcing particles for precipitation strengthening, while
rodeshaped ZrAl3 is regarded as a harmful phase due to stress
concentration. ZrB2 is another potential highetemperature
enhanced particle with high melting point and good thermal sta-
bility [23], e.g., Zhu et al. [24] reported that ZrB2 can be inesitu
synthesized by selfepropagation highetemperature synthesis and
was an effective reinforcement of matrix. Although the enhanced
particles of Al2O3, ZrAl3 and ZrB2 show excellent high temperature
potential, there are quite limited reports of their high temperature

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jallcom.2020.155926
0925-8388/© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
2 Y. Bian et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 842 (2020) 155926
performance.
Except for the design of the reinforcement system, the prepa-
ration method also affects the performance of the composite [25].
The exesitu methods have advantages on controllability of rein-
forcement types, since the particles are synthesized prior to addi-
tion to Al matrix [26,27], while the inesitu methods introduce
reinforced particles through constituent elements reacting during
the fabrication process [28e30]. In this way the size of the rein-
forced particles can be adjusted to be nanometer level and the
interface between the Al matrix and the particles is cleaner and
more firmly bonded which effectively transfers the load and re-
duces the highetemperature failure behavior of PAMCs. On this
view, designing particles reinforced Al composites by inesitu
method is regarded as the developing direction of this research
field.
In this paper, the (aeAl2O3þZrAl3)/Al and (aeAl2O3þZrB2)/Al
composites were fabricated by the liquidesolid reaction of Ale10%
ZrO2 and Ale10%ZrO2e6%B2O3. The tensile properties of the two
composites at 25  C and 350  C were tested. Related synthesis and
strengthening mechanisms of the reinforced particles were
analyzed.
2. Experimental
2.1. Composites preparation
The raw materials chosen in this work include commercial Al
powders (99.7%, all compositions quoted in this work are in wt%
unless otherwise stated; ~2 mm), ZrO2 powders (99.7%, ~50 nm) as
well as B2O3 powders (99.7%, ~5 mm). As shown in Fig. 1, the
powders were firstly mixed according to the designed content, i.e.
Ale10%ZrO2 and Ale10%ZrO2e6%B2O3. Then the mixed powders
were put into a cold isostatic press machine (LDJ200/500e380 YS)
and pressed into a pillar with the size of F80 mm  100 mm. Two
kinds of composites with designed particle contents (5.5%
Al2O3 þ 14.0%ZrAl3, 13.8%Al2O3 þ 9.2%ZrB2) were fabricated
through the liquidesolid reaction of Ale10%ZrO2 and Ale10%
ZrO2e6%B2O3 systems at 670  C for 60 min in a vacuum furnace
(ZMe39e13). Finally, hot extrusion carried out at 500  C with the
extrusion ratio of 14:1 was used to make the composites dense to
facilitate characterization and testing. For convenience, the Ale10%
ZrO2 and Ale10%ZrO2e6%B2O3 composites after reaction will be
named AZ and AZB composites respectively in the following text.
2.2. Characterization techniques
The microstructures of the composites were characterized by
the JSMe7800 F field emission scanning electron microscope
Fig. 1. Schematic showing the preparation of the AZ and AZB composites.
(FESEM) operated at 10 kV. And the linked energy dispersive
spectroscopy detector was used to analyze the elements of the
enhancement phase qualitatively. Xeray diffraction technology
was applied in a Rigaku D/maxer B diffractometer using Cu Ka ra-
diation at 40 kV and 100 mA and the phases contained in the AZ
and AZB composites were identified by means of a PDF2 database.
Details of the nanoparticles and their qualitative component ana-
lyses were obtained using FEI Tecnai G2F20 transmission electron
microscope (TEM, operated at 200 kV) equipped with energy
dispersion spectroscopy (EDS). Electron BackeScattered Diffraction
(EBSD) detector was adopted to investigate the information of
texture and crystallographic orientation of the aeAl matrix. And
the samples for the EBSD were electropolished with A2 Struers
solution (8 ml perchloric acid, 20 ml glycerol, and 72 ml ethanol).
Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC, Netzsch DSC/3/Fe404) was
used to reveal the phase transition of the composite at 250  C-
900  C, and the heating rate was set to 10  C/min.
2.3. Mechanical properties testing
To investigate the strengthening effect of inesitu synthesized
particles in the AZ and AZB composites, tensile properties at room
temperature (25  C) and elevated temperature (350  C) were car-
ried out by an electronic allepurpose test machine (CMT700). The
dogeboneeshaped samples for room and elevated temperature
test were processed from the center of the aseextruded rods ac-
cording to ASTM E8/E8M  15 with gauge size of F5 mm  25 mm
and ASTM E21e2009 with gauge size of F10 mm  50 mm,
respectively. The tensile rate of all specimens was set to 2 mm/min
and original data such as deformation and load were recorded and
controlled by the computer. For temperature stabilization, the
highetemperature tensile test rods were kept at 350  C for 30 min
before force loading. In each case, the experimental result was ac-
quired from at least four samples.
3. Results
3.1. Microstructure analysis and phase evolution
In order to illustrate the microstructure of the composites after
extrusion, a schematic diagram of the extrusion rod is presented in
Fig. 2a, in which the extrusion direction (ED) is perpendicular to the
transverse section and parallel to the longitudinal section. Fig. 2b
and c are the SEM images of the aseextruded AZ composite, i.e.
Ale10%ZrO2, showing the morphology and distribution of the
inesitu synthesized particles from the transverse and longitudinal
section, respectively. From the transverse section (Fig. 2b), it can be
seen that the particles exhibit rodelike shape while their
 Y. Bian et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 842 (2020) 155926 3

Fig. 2. (a) Schematic diagram shows extrusion direction, longitudinal section, and transverse section of the extrusion rod; (b, c) Microstructure of the aseextruded AZ composite
from the transverse section (b) and longitudinal section (c); (d) A higher magnified image showing the dualescale particles; (e) EDS results of the particles pointed in (d).

orientations of the long axis are random. By observing from the
longitudinal section as shown in Fig. 2c and the insert picture, apart
from the rodelike particles, a lot of particles with tetragonal shape
occur. In addition, it is worth noting that the long axis of the
rodelike particles has the same orientation that roughly parallel to
the extrusion direction, which means that the rodelike particles
distribute in a preferred orientation.
A magnified picture is shown in Fig. 2d, in which except for the
micron particles, nanoeparticles can be clearly identified. In com-
bination with the EDS point analysis (marked by the symbol ‘þ’) in
Fig. 2e, the rodelike and tetragonal phases are ZrAl3 through the
reaction between Al and ZrO2, while the formed Al2O3 particles
exhibit spherical shape. Fig. 3 is the TEM picture that further
characterizes the microstructure of the ZrAl3 and Al2O3 particles. It
reveals the ZrAl3 particles with a size of about 2 mm and the Al2O3
particles with a size of about 50 nm. In consistent with the SEM
results, two different 2D morphologies of ZrAl3 can be clearly
observed in Fig. 3a, indicating that ZrAl3 is tetragonal platelet
morphology in the Al matrix, which is the typical morphology of
the stable phase D023eZrAl3 as widely reported [31e33].
Fig. 4a displays the XRD patterns of the AZ composite which
confirms the formed phases in the matrix, and the diffraction peaks
of the aeAl2O3 (PDF#10e0173) and D023eZrAl3 (PDF#48e1385)
phases are precisely labeled in the transverse and longitudinal

Fig. 3. TEM images of the AZ composite at different magnifications.

4 Y. Bian et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 842 (2020) 155926

Fig. 4. (a) XRD analyses of the AZ composite from transverse and longitudinal sections; (b, c) Schematic diagrams show the preferred orientation of ZrAl3 particles from transverse
(b) and longitudinal section (c).

sections. It can be seen that the intensities of (004)ZrAl3 and 3.2. Properties of the AZ and AZB composites
(008)ZrAl3 in the longitudinal section enlarge obviously relative to
the transverse section, indicating that more ZrAl3 particles As mentioned earlier, the tensile properties of the AZ and AZB
exposing with (001) crystal plane are parallel to the longitudinal composites, especially at high temperatures have been investi-
section of the AZ composite. To indicate the preferred orientation of gated. Fig. 7 shows typical tensile curves of the AZ and AZB com-
ZrAl3 particles more vividly, the schematic diagrams are drawn, as posites tested at 25  C (room temperature) and 350  C, respectively.
shown in Fig. 4b and c. It should be noted that there is a similar As can be seen from the table inserted in Fig. 7a, the ultimate tensile
change in the diffraction peaks of the Al matrix, indicating that the strength (UTS) at 25  C of the AZ composite is 341 MPa while that of
Al matrix also has a preferred orientation in the AZ composite, the AZB composite is 463 MPa which is about 35.8% higher than AZ
which will be discussed in the later section. composite. The UTS at 350  C is 156 MPa for AZ composite and
As can be referred, the tetragonal ZrAl3 particles are regarded 188 MPa for AZB composite (Fig. 7b). Therefore, compared with the
harmful for the mechanical properties of the composite [20], since AZ composite, the tensile strength at 25  C and 350  C of the AZB
they exhibit relatively coarse size. Therefore, as mentioned earlier, composite have been both improved significantly.
B2O3 was introduced into the AleZrO2 system and thus the AZB
composite, i.e. Ale10%ZrO2e6%B2O3 was synthesized through
4. Discussion
liquidesolid reaction. The microstructures of the aseextruded AZB
composite from the transverse section and longitudinal section are
4.1. Synthesis mechanism of the reinforced particles during
shown in Fig. 5a and b, respectively. Different from the dualescale
liquidesolid reaction
enhanced particles in the AZ composite, only nanoesized particles
can be found in the matrix of the AZB composite. And the particles
As can be referred in other inesitu methods for preparing Al2O3
are distributed in a network in the transverse section while exhibit
and ZrB2, the raw materials undergo a complex multiestage reac-
streamlines along the extrusion direction in the longitudinal sec-
tion, and the reaction temperature needs to exceed 1000  C. As a
tion. TEM analysis was then conducted and the two types of
result, it is difficult to achieve nanoescale particles under that
nanoparticles are distinguished by EDS point analysis, as shown in
temperature. While in this work, the inesitu (aeAl2O3þZrB2)/Al
Fig. 5c. According to the atomic percentage of Zr, B, O, and Al in the
composite can be successfully synthesized utilizing the
table (inserted in Fig. 5c), the bright reinforcing particles with a size
liquidesolid reaction at 670  C and particle size can be reduced to
of about 100 nm is Al2O3, while ZrB2 particles exhibit dark gray
less than 100 nm.
color with a size of 10e30 nm. Fig. 5d is the high resolution TEM
To investigate the reaction process in the AleZrO2eB2O3 system,
picture of the AZB composite which reveals that nanoparticles and
the DSC test was conducted and the heating curve is shown in
Al matrix have clean interfaces between each other. The XRD an-
Fig. 8a. It can be found that there is an exothermic peak and an
alyses of the AZB composite from the transverse and longitudinal
endothermic peak during the heating process. The value of the
sections were also conducted, as shown in Fig. 6. It is found that the
endothermic peak is 664.9  C, which corresponds to the melting of
diffraction peaks of the aeAl2O3 (PDF#10e0173) and ZrB2
Al matrix. Therefore, it can be inferred that all of the reactions in the
(PDF#34e0423) on the transverse are consistent with longitudinal
AleZrO2eB2O3 system occur at the exothermic peak starting at
section while that of Al matrix is significantly different, indicating
529.5  C. It should be mentioned that no obvious endothermic peak
that the extrusion procedure changes the orientation of aeAl, but
of B2O3 melting was found, which may be due to that part of the
has no effect on the orientation of enhanced nanoeparticles since
heat released offsets the heat absorbed by the B2O3 melting.
they are nanoesized.
According to DSC result, although the reactions can proceed
completely before Al melts, the reaction temperature of
AleZrO2eB2O3 is still set as 670  C in this work, which is regarded
 Y. Bian et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 842 (2020) 155926
Fig. 5. (a, b) SEM analyses of the as-extruded AZB composite from the transverse section (a) and longitudinal section (b); (c) is the TEM image of AZB composite and the insert table
is the EDS analysis corresponding to the point marked by ‘þ’; (d) is the high resolution TEM image of the nanoparticles showing the clean interfaces.
Fig. 6. XRD curves of the AZB composite from transverse and longitudinal section.
helpful for achieving higher diffusion and reaction rate. In order to
clearly show the migration of atoms and the formation of phases
during the reactions, a schematic diagram was shown in Fig. 8b. By
heating the samples in furnace to 670  C, Al and B2O3 melt to
become liquid while ZrO2 remains solid due to its high melting
point. Therefore, the reactions occur in two places separately, i.e.,
within the melt and at the liquidesolid interface between Al and
ZrO2. The reaction in melt can be characterized as the following
expression:
2Al (l) þ B2O3 (l) /Al2O3 (s) þ 2[B]
Then the boron atoms migrate to the liquidesolid interface by
the liquid phase diffusion and react with ZrO2. This process occurs
5
at the liquidesolid interface and can be expressed by the equation:
3ZrO2 (s) þ 4Al (l) þ 6[B] /2Al2O3 (s) þ 3ZrB2 (s) (2)
Once the interface reaction begins, the boron atoms diffuse from
melt and oxygen atoms on the surface of ZrO2 are continuously
consumed at the liquidesolid interface, and a concentration
gradient is formed in the solid and liquid phase, thereby promoting
the reaction to continue until it is completed.
Therefore, the above analysis shows that the Al2O3 in the AZB
composite is synthesized in two different reactions, i.e. the interface
reaction between Al and ZrO2 and the melt reaction between Al and
B2O3. According to the diffraction peaks of Al2O3 in the XRD ana-
lyses in Figs. 4a and 6, it can be known that both of the Al2O3
particles in the two composites are aeAl2O3 (PDF#10e0173).
Therefore, by the mass fraction calculation and on the basis of the
source of Al2O3, the Ale10%ZrO2 and Ale10%ZrO2e6%B2O3 systems
after the liquidesolid reaction can be indeed expressed as (5.5%
Al2O3(from ZrO2) þ 14.0%ZrAl3)/Al and (5.5%Al2O3(from ZrO2) þ 8.3%
Al2O3(from B2O3) þ 9.2%ZrB2)/Al.
4.2. Effect of reinforced particles on the orientation of Al matrix
To understand the effect of extrusion process on the formed
texture of the Al matrix, the longitudinal sections of the AZ and AZB
composites were analyzed by EBSD. Fig. 9a and b are inverse pole
figures of the AZ and AZB composites and the inserted pictures are
corresponding grain size distribution maps, reflecting the
morphology, size, and orientation of aeAl grains in the
aseextruded longitudinal section. It can be observed that the aeAl
grains are stretched along the extrusion direction and the misori-
entation of adjacent grains is small. The average aeAl grain size of
(1) the AZ composite is calculated to be 1.07 mm and it is 1.13 mm for the
AZB composite. To probe the preferred orientation of the Al matrix
intuitively, pole figures were measured as displayed in Fig. 9c and d,
and they show that the <111> direction parallels to the extrusion
6 Y. Bian et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 842 (2020) 155926

Fig. 7. The stressestrain curves of the AZ and AZB composites at 25  C (a) and 350  C (b).

Fig. 8. (a) DSC analysis of the AleZrO2eB2O3 system; (b) Liquidesolid interface schematic diagram of the AZB composite at 670  C.

direction, suggesting that a fiber texture: <111>Al//ED formed in the move and will be hindered by reinforcing particles. Then disloca-
extruded AZ and AZB composites. tions are aggregated around the reinforcing particles, and the
Based on the analysis of ZrAl3 orientation in Section 3.1, it is movement of the dislocations will be hindered, resulting in the
regarded that the matrix grains and reinforced particles exhibit improving of tensile strength of the composite. The enhancement
interactive behavior. On one hand, when the particles reach micron effect can be described by the following formula [34]:
level or have asymmetrical morphologies such as D023eZrAl3, the
rotating of Al grains during extrusion will coerce ZrAl3 to form a Gb
Dsor ¼ 2 (3)
specific orientation. On the other hand, the size of the reinforcing t
particles also affects the preferred orientation of the Al matrix. As
shown in Fig. 9c and d, the preferred orientation of the Al matrix in where b is the Burgers vector, G is the matrix shear modulus and t is
the AZ composite is weaker than that of the AZB composite, which the distance between the reinforced particles which can be esti-
can be deduced that the hard micronesized ZrAl3 particles have mated as:
also inhibited the rotation of Al grains during the extrusion process.
2p 12
t ¼ 6d½  (4)
4.3. Strengthening mechanism and fracture analysis vp

The tensile tests show that the AZB composites have more
excellent tensile properties than the AZ composites at both room
and higher temperatures, which can be explained by the Orowan
strengthening mechanism. According to the mechanism, when
stress is applied to the sample, dislocations in the matrix begin to
here d is the diameter of the particle and Vp is the volume fraction.
It indicates that the smaller the enhanced particle size and the
larger the volume fraction, the better the strengthening effect. As
discussed in Section 4.1, the particles in the AZ and AZB composites
are 5.5%Al2O3þ14ZrAl3 and 13.8Al2O3þ9.2ZrB2, respectively.
 Y. Bian et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 842 (2020) 155926 7

Fig. 9. EBSD analyses on aeAl grains from longitudinal section: (a, b) The grain orientation distribution of the AZ composite (a) and AZB composite (b); Pictures inserted in (a) and
(b) are the corresponding grain size distribution maps; (c,d) The Pole figures of AZ composite (c) and AZB composite (d).

Obviously, the nanoparticles in the AZB composite have a more
Orowan significant strengthening effect due to the smaller size and
higher fraction.
Fractography observation is an effective way to analyze the
failure behavior of reinforced particles during tensile procedure.
Fig. 10a and b are the fracture surfaces of the AZ and AZB com-
posites after room temperature tensile tests. There are a large
number of dimples and parallel tearing ridges on the fracture sur-
face in both AZ and AZB, indicating that their fracture type is
micropore aggregation fracture. As shown in Fig. 10a, the ZrAl3
particles can be observed at the bottom of the dimples on the
fracture surface of AZ composite. Therefore, it was deduced that the
micropores nucleate and grow at the interface between ZrAl3 par-
ticles and Al matrix, and finally develop into cracks during the
tensile process which cause the AZ composite to fracture. In
Fig. 10b, the nanoparticles are evenly distributed in the dimple of
the AZB composite, which indicates that the nanoparticles effec-
tively reduce the stress concentration at the interface. When the
AZB composite is under tensile force, the dislocations would
aggregate at the interfaces between particles and Al matrix. Then
the load is transferred to Al2O3 and ZrB2 nanoparticles to delay the
nucleation and growth of the micropores, which makes the AZB
composite show higher tensile strength.
Fig. 10c and d are the high temperature fracture surfaces cor-
responding to AZ and AZB composites, respectively. It can be seen
the dimples are larger and more particles are exposed to the surface
when the AZ composite is tested at 350  C. This is because the Al
matrix rapidly softens at high temperatures, i.e., dynamic softening.
As shown in Fig. 10d, the dimples on the fracture surface of the AZB
composite after the 350  C tensile test have not become larger than
that at room temperature, indicating that the dispersed hard
nanoparticles play a supporting effect on the matrix even when the
Al matrix undergoes dynamic softening. Finally, the tensile strength
of AZB composite at 350  C can reach as high as 188 MPa.
5. Conclusion
(1) The (5.5Al2O3þ14ZrAl3)/Al and (13.8Al2O3þ9.2ZrB2)/Al
composites were inesitu fabricated through the liquidesolid
reaction of AleZrO2 and AleZrO2eB2O3 systems. The mean
size of ZrAl3 particles is about 2 mm and the aeAl2O3 and ZrB2
are nanoparticles with a size less than 100 nm.
8 Y. Bian et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 842 (2020) 155926
Fig. 10. The tensile fracture surfaces at room temperature (a, b) and at high temperature (c, d): (a, c) the AZ composite; (b, d) the AZB composite.
(2) After extrusion, the fiber texture: <111>Al//ED was formed in
both of the (Al2O3þZrAl3)/Al and (Al2O3þZrB2)/Al compos-
ites. Micron ZrAl3 particles form a preferred orientation with
more (001) planes exposed in the longitudinal section of the
composite, which simultaneously exhibits an interactive
performance with the orientation of Al matrix.
(3) Compared with (Al2O3þZrAl3)/Al composite, the
(Al2O3þZrB2)/Al composite exhibits higher tensile strength
at both 25  C and 350  C. The tensile strength of
(Al2O3þZrB2)/Al composite can reach 188 MPa at 350  C,
indicating that the Al2O3 and ZrB2 are promising strength-
ening phases in the design of high temperature properties.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Yihan Bian: Investigation, Data curation, Writing - original
draft. Tong Gao: Writing - review & editing, Supervision. Lingyu
Liu: Data curation. Guiliang Liu: Resources. Xiangfa Liu: Concep-
tualization, Funding acquisition.
Acknowledgement
This research was financially supported by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (No. 51731007) and the Young Scholars
Program of Shandong University.
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