Developing Surface Metal Matrix Composites: A Comparative Survey

Abstract

Surface metal matrix composites (MMCs) are a class of engineered materials which contain secondary phase that is distributed at the surface and no composition change is found at the core. Especially for applications where surface requires more hardness and wear resistance, surface composites play a promising role. There are many routes such as laser melt treatment, vapour deposition, centrifugal casting, plasma spraying which are used to produce surface composites and reported in the literature. Solid state processing methods for example friction assisted techniques are the other recent developments have grabbed a great interest in developing surface composites. The aim of the present review is to summarize different processing routes which have been developed to produce surface MMCs. Emphasis has been given to discuss the mechanism behind the formation of composite during processing and to compare the advantages and limitations of these processes.