Articles
  • Investigations into microstructure and mechanical properties of Al 6061/SiCp metal matrix composite spur gear produced via powder metallurgy

  • V. Vijayakumara,*, Pradeep Johnsonb, Ruban Whenishc, A. John Rajand and Vincent H Wilsone

  • aAssistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, PSG college of Technology, Coimbatore 641004, India
    bAssistant Professor, Department of Mechatronics Engineering, Hindusthan College of Engineering and Technology, Coimbatore 641032, India
    cApplication Engineer, Manna Chemicals & Drugs Private Limited, Chennai 600037, India
    dProfessor, Department of Manufacturing Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore 632014, India
    eProfessor, Department of Technology Management, School of Mechanical Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore 632014, 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

The characteristics of Al 6061/SiCp Metal Matrix Composite (MMC) have been established for checking the suitability of lightweight spur gear using Powder Metallurgy (P/M) technique. Aluminium powder reinforced with SiCp particle with various weight.% (0, 5, 10 & 15) and particle sizes (35 µm and 65 µm). The smaller sized spur gears of 4 mm module, 48 mm pitch circle diameter and 22 mm face width were chosen. The complex gear profiled compaction die assembly was manufactured for making net shaped gear without any machining operation. The H frame hydraulic press was used to compact gear samples with compaction pressures of 132 MPa and 165 MPa. Then gear samples were sintered using muffle furnace at 570 ºC. The prepared gear samples were used for density measurement, bending strength test, hardness measurement and microstructure analysis. The research work leads to the observation of Al 6061 with 10 wt.% & 35 µm size of (SiCp) P/M gear exhibiting a greater enhancement of mechanical properties than the unreinforced Al alloy. Thus the effect of adding ceramic particles SiCp with Al 6061 enhanced the mechanical properties and enabling Al 6061/SiCp composite spur gear suitable for lightweight applications


Keywords: SiCp ceramic reinforcement, Lightweight Aluminium MMC Spur gear, Particle size & weight %, Powder Metallurgy, mechanical & microstructural analysis

This Article

  • 2021; 22(4): 401-408

    Published on Aug 31, 2021

  • 10.36410/jcpr.2021.22.4.401
  • Received on Oct 23, 2020
  • Revised on Jan 1, 2021
  • Accepted on Feb 5, 2021

Correspondence to

  • V. Vijayakumar

  • Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, PSG college of Technology, Coimbatore 641004, India
    Tel : +91-9842576766

  • E-mail: mechviji2010@gmail.com