According to the literature , adding ceramic particles to a metal can significantly reduce the ductility of the made composites. Therefore, to improve the ductility and reduce the hardness of the base alloy, a soft annealing process is performed on each specimen. In this process, the specimens are placed inside a furnace, and the temperature is raised from ambient to 420 °C and kept at this temperature for two hours. Then the heating is stopped, and the parts remain inside the furnace until the temperature reaches room temperature. This annealing process has reduced the hardness of the base alloy from 120 to 46 HV and prepared the specimens for friction stir processing.