Characterization of aluminium-red mud-tungsten carbide hybrid metal matrix composite

Abstract

An environmental hazardous waste material Red mud obtained from Bayer's process during the processing of Alumina. Presently it has been difficult for the industries to dispose their wastage and utilization of byproducts. In the current work, Red mud is mixed with other metals mainly aluminium and tungsten carbide to form hybrid metal matrix composites synthesized by powder metallurgy, which has more advanced mechanical properties and applications. Red mud received from the National Aluminium Company Limited (NALCO) has been subjected for sieve analysis and milled to 42 nanometers by using high energy ball mill. Red mud is used as a reinforcement material in Pure Aluminium matrix composite at 2%, 4%, and 6% weight at micro as well as nano levels along with 4%Tungsten carbide by weight is common. Micro and Nano structured red mud powders, Tungsten carbide powder and Pure Aluminium powder is mixed in a V-Blender, compacted at a pressure of 40bar and samples are prepared by conventional sintering. Hardness and wear characteristics are investigated with optimal combination of Aluminium-Tungsten carbide with various weight fractions of micro and nano structured Red mud powder. Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) structures are analyzed to study the particle dispersion.