A powder-in-sheath rolling method was applied to a fabrication of a carbon nano tube (CNT) reinforcedaluminum composite. A STS304 tube with an outer diameter of 34 mm and a wall thickness of 2 mm was used as asheath material. A mixture of pure aluminum powders and CNTs with the volume contents of 1, 3, 5 vol was filled inthe tube by tap filling and then processed to 73.5% height reduction by a rolling mill. The relative density of the CNT/Al composite fabricated by the powder-in-sheath rolling decreased slightly with increasing of CNTs content, but exhib-ited high value more than 98. The grain size of the aluminum matrix was largely decreased with addition of CNTs; itdecreased from 24 µm to 0.9 µm by the addition of only 1 volCNT. The average hardness of the composites increasedby approximately 3 times with the addition of CNTs, comparing to that of unreinforced pure aluminum. It is concludedthat the powder-in-sheath rolling method is an effective process for fabrication of CNT reinforced Al matrix composites.

A powder in sheath rolling method was applied to the fabrication of a carbon nano tube (CNT) reinforced aluminum composite. A 6061 aluminum alloy tube with outer diameter of 31 mm and wall thickness of 2 mm was used as a sheath material. A mixture of pure aluminum powder and CNTs with a volume content of 5% was filled in the tube by tap filling and then processed to an 85% reduction using multi-pass rolling after heating for 0.5 h at 400˚C. The specimen was then further processed at 400˚C by multi-pass hot rolling. The specimen was then annealed for 1 h at various temperatures that ranged from 100 to 500˚C. The relative density of the 5vol%CNT/Al composite fabricated using powder in sheath rolling increased with increasing of the rolling reduction, becoming about 97% after hot rolling under 96 % total reduction. The relative density of the composite hardly changed regardless of the increasing of the annealing temperature. The average hardness also had only slight dependence on the annealing temperature. However, the tensile strength of the composite containing the 6061 aluminum sheath decreased and the fracture elongation increased with increasing of the annealing temperature. It is concluded that the powder in sheath rolling method is an effective process for fabrication of CNT reinforced Al matrix composites.