A POTENTIAL REVIEW ON INFLUENCE OF PROCESS PARAMETER AND EFFECT OF REINFORCEMENT ON MECHANICAL AND TRIBOLOGICAL BEHAVIOUR OF HMMC USING SQUEEZE CASTING METHOD

Abstract

Currently increasing the demand on production of high quality components and reduction of manufacturing lead time, advanced production processes like squeeze casting are becoming popular among various industrial communities. Light metal alloys are extensively used in automotive, aerospace, aircraft and military sectors since their light weight leads to reduced energy consumption, increased fuel efficiency and better environmental protection. In the present situation, aluminium matrix composites (AMC) are the potential candidate for weight saving in the structural application and have the ability to meet stringent government norms. AMC’s provide the synergetic effect of both aluminium and the reinforcement on the mechanical properties resulting in high specific strength, high hardness at elevated temperature, better wear resistance and excellent corrosion resistance. With various technologies and various grades of aluminium AMC were developed day-by-day and used for numerous applications. But still its production through liquid metallurgical route is a challenging task due to the lack of control over the type, size, and weight fraction of the composite. Squeeze casting combines the advantages of forging and gravity die casting; it annihilates all the defects in the stir casting and produces the castings with near net shapes with less porosity. Proper selection of the process parameter is the key to enhancing the mechanical and wear properties of the composite. Hence in this paper vast study on the influence of the process parameters, effect of reinforcements and on the mechanical properties AMC’s were done.