Investigation on mechanical properties wear behaviour and machinability of stir cast lm13 aluminium alloy zirconium diboride titanium carbide reinforced hybridcomposites

Abstract

Most of the engineering industries are looking towards novel materials to make their products with desired properties like less density, high strength, good wear resistance and excellent hardness. Composites are the appropriate materials to satisfy the industrial demands and they are made up of two or more constituents, viz, matrix phase and reinforcements. The materials of these two constituents have distinct physical and chemical newlineproperties and when they are combined together, the resulting composite material yields different and superior properties than that of monolithic materials. Metal matrix composites (MMCs) are significantly used in automotive, marine, defense and aerospace industries due to their high strength, stiffness, good stability at high temperature and excellent resistance newlineto wear and corrosion. Over the decades, aluminium alloy is largely preferred as matrix phase for the fabrication of MMCs due to its low weight, high electrical and thermal conductivity, good forming ability and low cost. Particle reinforcements, namely, carbides (TiC, SiC, B4C), nitrides (AlN, Si3N4) and borides (ZrB2, TiB2) are used to enhance the newlineproperties of matrix material. Owing to their enhanced properties, particulates embedded aluminium based composites are utilized largely for making automotive components such as cylinder liners, pistons, suspension arms, brake discs, frames and valve caps. Several fabrication techniques, namely, stir casting, compo casting, in-situ casting, squeeze casting are used to synthesize particulates reinforced composites. Among all the casting techniques, stir cast route is economical, appropriate and flexible to produce near net shape mass components. Besides, uniform spread of reinforcing constituents along with excellent bonding with matrix phase can be obtained in stir cast method. newline newline