American Journal of Nanomaterials, 2015, Vol. 3, No. 1, 28-39 Available online at http://pubs.sciepub.com/ajn/3/1/4 © Science and Education Publishing DOI:10.12691/ajn-3-1-4 Synthesis and Mechanical Characterisation of Aluminium-Copper-Alumina Nano Composites Powder Embedded in Glass/Epoxy Laminates P K Dash 1,* , Prof. B. S. Murty 2 , R B Karthik Aamanchi 3 1 Department of Aeronautical Engineering, IARE, Hyderabad, Telangana 2 Metallurgy & Material Sciences Department, IIT Madras, Chennai, TamilNadu 3 Geetam University, Hyderabad, Telangana *Corresponding author: drpdash@gmail.com Received May 06, 2015; Revised June 05, 2015; Accepted July 15, 2015 Abstract This paper presents the synthesis and mechanical properties study of Aluminum-Copper nanocomposite powders with variation in volume percentages of alumina. The powders were synthesized using mechanical alloying (high energy ball milling technique). Samples of size 20 × 10 mm were produced from nanocomposite powders by spark plasma sintering technique and conventional sintering method. The microstructural verifications were carried out using X-ray diffraction. Transition electron microscopy were used to determine the phases formed and size of the particles. Thermal analysis and hardness of these samples were measured by conducting DSC and Vickers’s Hardness Test. Also, the powders of ACANC were embedded into Glass/Epoxy laminates for further identification of NC powders effects on mechanical properties like tensile and compressive strength. The samples prepared using conventional sintering technique had gone through two different types of annealing before sintering and shown enhanced hardness, yield strength and increment in density. The nanocomposite embedded laminates have shown improved tensile, compression and hardness values in compare to virgin specimens. Keywords: Al-Cu-Alumina-Nano-Composite (ACANC), plasma sintering technique, X-ray diffraction, TEM, DSC, GFRC, mechanical properties Cite This Article: P K Dash, Prof. B. S. Murty, and R B Karthik Aamanchi, “Synthesis and Mechanical Characterisation of Aluminium-Copper-Alumina Nano Composites Powder Embedded in Glass/Epoxy Laminates.” American Journal of Nanomaterials, vol. 3, no. 1 (2015): 28-39. doi: 10.12691/ajn-3-1-4. 1. Introduction Nanocomposite, a high performance material exhibit unusual property combination and unique design possibilities [1,2]. With an estimated annual growth rate of about 25% and fastest demand to be in engineering plastics and elastomers, their potential is so striking that they are useful in several areas ranging from packaging to biomedical applications. Present day, a spurt of research activity is witnessed in the area of synthesis, fabrication and utilization studies of different size and shape of metal nano-particles [1-50]. With polymer NCs, properties related to local chemistry, degree of thermoset cure, polymer chain mobility, polymer chain conformation, degree of polymer chain ordering or crystallinity can all vary significantly and continuously from the interface with the reinforcement into the bulk of the matrix [17-31]. Also, it can have an observable effect on the macroscale properties of the composite [32-50]. For example, adding carbon nanotubes improves the electrical and thermal conductivity. Other kinds of nano-particulates may result in enhanced optical properties, dielectric properties, heat resistance or mechanical properties such as stiffness, strength and resistance to wear and damage [10-50]. The metallic NC plays a significant role in modern day engineering due to its excellent conductivity and low cost nano-particles [2]. These nanostructural materials can be synthesized in controlled processes by the methods like, highly energetic reactive milling, precipitation from solution (sol-gel), hydrothermal synthesis, electrochemical synthesis, and internal oxidation etc [1-16]. One of them is Aluminum Copper alumina nano particles which will gain increasing importance as is expected to be an essential component in the future nano-devices due to its excellent thermal properties as well as good biocompatibility and its surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) activity [3]. Also, the addition of metallic copper nano-crystals, dispersed homogeneously in silica layers have attracted great attention recently for the development of nonlinear optical devices [4]. The most extensively used methods for the production of Al-Cu-alumina composite materials (ACACMs) are based on casting, [8] mechanical alloying [9,10] and other techniques. [11,12] However, conventional casting techniques are not practical because of the poor uniformity of dispersed particles. But, ACACMs are increasingly produced by powder metallurgy (P/M) method where the