Friction Characteristics of Hybrid Aluminium 6061 Composite Reinforced With Silicon Carbide and Red-Mud

Abstract

The present investigation has been focused on the friction behavior of the hybrid aluminium 6061 composite incorporated with silicon carbide (SiC) and red mud as the reinforcements. The studied composite has been fabricated using stir casting technique. The L18 orthogonal array has been used for designing the experiments. The experimentation has been done using pin-on-disc wear and friction monitor to get the value of the coefficient of friction. The variable parameters such as magnesium content, aging time, red mud particle size, red mud content, load, sliding speed and sliding distance have been selected in order to evaluate their effect on the coefficient of friction. The selected parameters have been varied at three different levels except for magnesium content which was varied for two levels. Delta analysis was carried using software MINITAB 18 and it revealed that red mud content (rank1) affects the coefficient of friction the most while magnesium content (rank 7) affects it the least. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) analysis has been conducted in order to evaluate the significance of each parameter on the coefficient of friction. The result revealed that the aging time, red mud particle size, red mud content, sliding speed and sliding distance have been found significantly affecting the friction coefficient.