Dry sliding wear of heat treated hybrid metal matrix composites

Abstract

In recent years, there has been an ever-increasing demand for enhancing mechanical properties of Aluminum Matrix Composites (AMCs), which are finding wide applications in the field of aerospace, automobile, defence etc,. Among all available aluminium alloys, Al6061 is extensively used owing to its excellent wear resistance and ease of processing. Newer techniques of improving the hardness and wear resistance of Al6061 by dispersing an appropriate mixture of hard ceramic powder and whiskers in the aluminium alloy are gaining popularity. The conventional aluminium based composites possess only one type of reinforcements. Addition of hard reinforcements such as silicon carbide, alumina, titanium carbide, improves hardness, strength and wear resistance of the composites. However, these composites possessing hard reinforcement do posses several problems during their machining operation. AMCs reinforced with particles of Gr have been reported to be possessing better wear characteristics owing to the reduced wear because of formation of a thin layer of Gr particles, which prevents metal to metal contact of the sliding surfaces. Further, heat treatment has a profound influence on mechanical properties of heat treatable aluminium alloys and its composites. For a solutionising temperature of 5500C, solutionising duration of 1hr, ageing temperature of 1750C, quenching media and ageing duration significantly alters mechanical properties of both aluminium alloy and its composites. In the light of the above, the present paper aims at developing aluminium based hybrid metal matrix composites containing both silicon carbide and graphite and characterize their mechanical properties by subjecting it to heat treatment. Results indicate that increase of graphite content increases wear resistance of hybrid composites reinforced with constant SiC reinforcement. Further heat treatment has a profound influence on the wear resistance of the matrix alloy as well as its hybrid composites. For all the heat treatment processes studied ice quenching with ageing duration of 6hrs resulted in improved wear resistance of both the unreinforced matrix alloy and its hybrid composites.