Fabrication of aluminum TIG welding filler rods reinforced by ZrO2/reduced graphene oxide hybrid nanoparticles via accumulative roll bonding

Abstract In the present study, accumulative roll bonding (ARB) was utilized to incorporate ZrO2/reduced graphene oxide (rGO) hybrid nanoparticles into the 1100 aluminum matrix to fabricate composite filler rods of tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding. After welding, microstructures and distribution of hybrid nanoparticles were analyzed with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). It was found that by increasing the number of ARB cycles, the hybrid nanoparticles were uniformly distributed in the filler rods. The tensile strength and microhardness of the nanoparticle-reinforced weld metals have an obvious improvement compared to that of unreinforced weld metal, but the elongation show a decrease. This improvement in the mechanical properties was attributed to the grain refinement and homogeneous dispersion of hybrid nanoparticles as well as the good interfacial bonding between the hybrid nanoparticles and aluminum matrix resulted from the ARB technique.