Experimental investigation of wear properties of AA6061 + Al2O3 metal matrix composite fabricated by vacuum stir casting method

Abstract

Metal matrix composites (MMCs) are gaining importance as a promising material in various engineering applications like marine, defense, automobile, aerospace etc. due to better mechanical and tribological properties such as high specific strength, corrosion resistance, stiffness, thermal properties, wear resistance etc. In general, the liquid state casting offers some important advantages such as better matrix particle binding, simple control of the matrix, closer to the net size and a wider scope of material selection. In the present investigation, the MMC was fabricated through the vacuum stir casting process. The composition of MMC used for this work was 3% by weight of Al2O3 as the reinforcement particles with AA6061 aluminum alloy as base metal. Samples of MMC, fabricated as above, were prepared and characterized for tribological behavior. The wear properties were studied on pin-on-disc testing machine. The experiments were also conducted on AA6061 for comparison. The wear resistance of the composite increased with the addition of reinforcements.