Study to improve physical and mechanical properties of pure alumina reinforced by PMMA

Abstract EN

Alumina material was reinforced with thermoplastic polymer (Poly-methyl Methacrylate PMMA) by infiltration method in this study.

Where pure alumina (α-Al2O3) powder was mixed with naphthalene as volatile material by weight fractions of naphthalene (0,15,30,45) wt% for a period of 3 hours by electric mixer to prepared the porous ceramic material.

Specimens were prepared by pressing after added (PVA) binder.

They were dried at (1100C) and sintered at (1000 0C) and stay for 1 hour at that temperature.

Then, the physical properties such as porosity, density and the mechanical properties such as compressive, impact strength were measured before infiltration.

Infiltration material (Poly-methyl Methacrylate PMMA) was prepared by mixing (83%) of chloroform as solvent material to granules PMMA and heating at (500c) with movement to convert that mixture into a liquid material with less viscosity.

After that the samples was immersed in liquid (infiltration material) and left to allow the volatile material (chloroform) to escape by evaporation leaving PMMA alone as reinforcement materials.

Then, mechanical and physical properties of the samples were tested after infiltration process.

The results showed an improvement their physical and mechanical properties of the composite material.