Investigations on mechanical and wear characteristics of aluminium alumina boron carbide composites

Abstract

Metal Matrix Composites MMC have been established to be an essential class of materials with the potential to replace a number of monolithic materials used in space craft automotive defence and sport goods manufacturing industries Aluminium alloys are utilized in many applications because of their attractive properties like high strength low density durability machinability and cost effective when compared to their competing metals The scope of these properties can be further extended by utilizing aluminium matrix composite materials reinforced with hard ceramic particulates like Silicon carbide Aluminium oxide Zirconium Boron carbide etc Aluminium matrix composites are usually manufactured by various methods like liquid metallurgy route powder metallurgy process etc A comprehensive investigation was made to assess the mechanical properties and wear behaviour of Al 7075Al2O3B4C composites The hybrid composites were manufactured using stir casting technique In this work aluminium alloy reinforced with Al2O3 with varying weight percentage 2 4 6 8 and 10 and a constant weight percentage of B4C 5 with an average particle size of 37 microns is chosen The reinforcements were mechanically stirred and well dispersed into the liquid metal before solidification of the composites 2 of magnesium was added to the slurry to increase the wettability of composites newline