Nano-sized silicon carbide reinforced commercial casting aluminum alloy matrix: Experimental and novel modeling evaluation

Abstract

In the current research, nano-composites of commercial casting aluminum alloy reinforced with nano-silicon carbide were produced. Experimental and modeling investigations were carried out on the porosity, wear, hardness, elongation, yield strength and ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of these nano-composites. The density measurements showed that the amount of porosity in the composites increased with increasing the volume fraction of nano-particles. The wear sliding test revealed that composites offer superior wear resistance as compared to the alloy irrespective of nano-particles volume fraction. The tensile strength results show that the yield strength and ultimate tensile strength of the composites increased with increasing volume fraction of nano-particles. The incorporation of nano-particles deteriorates the ductility of A356 alloy. However, the elongation remains rather constant with increasing the volume fraction of nano-particles. In the other word, increasing the nano-sized ceramic particles content helps to strengthen the composites, while the ductility is retained. In this paper, a technique based on artificial neural network (ANN) and finite element method (FEM) was proposed to investigate on nano-silicon carbide reinforced commercial casting aluminum alloy matrix. It was observed that prediction of this study is consistent with experimental measurements for aluminum matrix composites.