Experiments to find the corrosion and wear resistances and hardness of Al7075 metal matrix and NbC/Ti nanoparticles reinforcements composite

Abstract

Composite material is the area of interest in the world today, for the manufacturing of the latest industrial and domestic equipments and the air, sea and road vehicles. They all require materials with special properties like high strength, corrosion and wear resistances, high hardness, light weight, easy for maintenance, cost effective etc. The airspace vehicles exemplify the composite materials with aluminium and its alloys as the base metal for their components, since they are lighter in weight, which is the prime requirement. To obtain the properties needed for each component, the suitable reinforcements are added to the matrix, which may also enhance the required properties. In this paper, Al7075 is used as the matrix and niobium carbide and titanium nanoparticles are selected for the reinforcements. Al7075 is very strong and light material, Niobium carbide has a melting point of 3490 °C, and titanium is highly corrosion resistant. These properties of the reinforcements gave the objective of finding a material for the marine engine components. The various compositions were Niobium carbide nanoparticles 5%, 10% and 15% and titanium nanoparticles 2%, 4% and 6% respectively with Al7075. Then the three samples of this composite were manufactured using the stir casting method and the corrosion, wear and hardness tests were conducted on these samples. The best results were obtained in 10% NiC and 4% Ti composition.