Articles
  • Influences of ZrO2 and B4C reinforcement on metallurgical, mechanical, and tribological properties of AA6082 hybrid composite materials

  • Umar Mohamed J.a,*, Palaniappan PL. K.b, Maran P.b and Pandiyarajan R.c

  • aResearch Scholar, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Anna University, Chennai 600025, Tamil Nadu, India
    bDept. of Mechanical Engineering, Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai 625015, Tamil Nadu, India
    cDept. of Mechanical Engineering, K.L.N College of Engineering, Potapalayam 630612, Tamil Nadu, India

  • This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

In the present work, the metallurgical, mechanical, and tribological behavior of hybrid metal matrix composites of Aluminium alloy (AA6082) reinforced with Zirconium dioxide (ZrO2) and Boron carbide (B4C) particulates has been investigated to maximize the tensile strength and wear resistance. Aluminum Metal Matrix Hybrid Composite (AMMHC) materials are fabricated by reinforcing the AA6082 Aluminium alloy matrix with ZrO2 and B4C, each at different weight percentages using technique of liquid metallurgy (stir casting). The addition of ZrO2 and B4C up to 8% by weight has improved the tensile strength at around 30% (from 149 MPa to 193 MPa) and the hardness at around 27% (from 63 HV to 74 HV) compared to the base matrix AA6082 material. The microstructural, X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), and Energy Dispersive X-Ray (EDX) analysis are performed on the fabricated AMMHC. All these analyses show the even dispersion of reinforcing particulates with the metal matrix. It also confirms that the mechanical properties like ultimate tensile strength (UTS), micro-hardness and tribological property like resistance to wear have been significantly improved by this reinforcement particulates. The wear rate and coefficient of friction have been found using a pin-on-disc machine. The lowest and highest wear rate obtained for casted AMMHC materials are 1.84 e-7 g/mm and 3.58 e-7 g/mm respectively for the velocity of sliding of 1 m/s, the normal force of 20 N, and at a distance of sliding of 600 m


Keywords: AMMHC, Stir casting, Microstructure, Tensile strength, Hardness, Wear rate

This Article

  • 2021; 22(3): 306-316

    Published on Jun 30, 2021

  • 10.36410/jcpr.2021.22.3.306
  • Received on Sep 24, 2020
  • Revised on Oct 20, 2020
  • Accepted on Oct 23, 2020

Correspondence to

  • Umar Mohamed J.

  • Research Scholar, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Anna University, Chennai 600025, Tamil Nadu, India
    Tel : +9443477839

  • E-mail: umarmjamaludeen@gmail.com