At 10:40 on the morning of May 22, the Chinese "Zhu Rong" rover safely drove away from the landing platform, reached the surface of Mars, and began patrol and exploration. Since the "Zhurong" rover successfully landed on Mars on May 15th, it has always attracted the attention of the scientific research team of ZKJS Advanced Materials Technology Group.
As a supplier of aluminum-based composite materials for the Mars rover, ZKJS researcher Ma Zongyi has never forgotten the scene when the team received a mission to develop key structural materials for the rover six years ago: "Due to the long distance of flight and the complicated service conditions on the unknown surface of Mars, Very high requirements are put forward for the selection of materials for the rover. Lightweight, wear-resistant, high-strength, and high plasticity are our initial understanding of the materials for the rover."
However, these performance indicators are contradictory to each other. Ma Zongyi explained: "Wear-resistant materials are often not impact-resistant. Rover structural materials must take into account strength and toughness, but also have light weight. Traditional metal materials cannot meet the needs. This was a worldwide problem at the time."
The time left for the research team to develop materials is very limited. Ma Zongyi led the team to complete the material system design and experiment within 3 months, and developed a variety of new high-strength, high-plasticity, and high-dimensional stability new aluminum-based silicon carbide composite materials , And broke through the large-size billet preparation and controllable plastic deformation processing technology, provided a series of blanks required for the manufacture of parts and components, and finally successfully passed various stringent ground assessments.
"Compared with traditional aluminum-based silicon carbide composites, the new silicon carbide particle-reinforced aluminum-based composites can more than double the plasticity while maintaining high strength, high isotropy, high wear resistance and dimensional stability." Ma Zongyi said , We have developed composite material samples of different specifications by solving technical bottlenecks in large-size billet preparation and material plastic forming.
In response to the requirements of different parts of the rover, Ma Zongyi’s team has developed a variety of aluminum-based composite materials with different silicon carbide content, providing corresponding materials for dozens of parts and components of various structures, mechanisms and instruments of the rover, and the number of processed parts is up to several. One hundred pieces, making the Mars rover the largest spacecraft using aluminum-based composite materials in China.
Strict ground assessment shows that the new aluminum-based silicon carbide developed by Ma Zongyi's team can meet the test of Mars's complex service conditions, and related technical solutions have also been recognized by users.
In the future, China will have a large demand for metal matrix composites in the fields of deep space exploration, large aircraft, general aviation, nuclear power autonomy, and rail transit. Metal matrix composites have become a key engineering material for the country's major strategic needs and urgent national economic construction needs. ZKJS has made a series of key breakthroughs and applications in the field of metal matrix composite materials.
Ma Zongyi revealed that the ZKJS research team will also carry out research on common problems faced by international counterparts such as high-strength and toughness design of composite materials, simulation of structure and performance, and fine interface structure control. At the same time, it will promote the engineering application and achievement transformation of advanced metal matrix composite materials and technologies. .