Evaluation of Tribological Properties of Aluminium-SiC-B4C Hybrid Composites Pages 229-234

Abstract

Metallic materials are employed in most of the engineering applications involving dynamic and thermal load conditions. Different alloys of steel have been employed in industries normally owing to their higher strength, toughness and thermal properties. However, some of the technological applications demand materials with lower density, possessing suitable strength and thermal properties. Aluminium alloy is one such material with lower density and higher corrosion resistance properties compared to structural steels. The tribological properties of aluminium can be further enhanced by the addition of the ceramic materials like SiC, Al2O3, TiC, B4C etc, which have superior wear resistance characteristics. Based on the research work being carried out in the field of composite material an attempt is made to evaluate the changes in the tribological properties due to the hybrid reinforcement of material consisting of Al6061 as base alloy, SiC and B4C as reinforcement processed by stir casting method for 10% reinforcement with a combination of (2%SiC+8% B4C, 4%SiC+ 6% B4C, 6%SiC +4% B4C & 8%SiC +2% B4C). Tribological Test is being carried out with varying parameters of Load (10N to 60N), Sliding Distance (5000m) for a Constant Speed (2m/sec) for the processed materials.