An Experimental Investigation on the Fabrication and Testing of Mechanical Properties of Aluminum–Silica Gel Metal Matrix Composite

Abstract

A metal matrix composite (MMC) was fabricated using Al as the base metal which was reinforced by a ceramic material silica gel. This article shows detail fabrication stages in the production of MMC. The properties were considered with regard to the saturation point of the reinforcement of silica gel into the metal matrix of Al–Si alloy which was found out experimentally. Here the improvement of the mechanical properties of Al–silica gel MMC composite were studied with respect to that of pure Al–Si alloy. Different tests were conducted to show the results. Conventional ingot metallurgy with infiltration technique using vortex method had been employed in the fabrication process. The test results show that there are improvements by 17.14%, 13.46%, 11.48%, and 18.18% on compressive strength, impact strength, Brinell hardness value, and Rockwell hardness no respectively of Al–silica gel MMC over the pure Al–Si alloy.