Optimizing the Dry Sliding Wear Behavior of Stir-Casted Al6061/Nano-Al2O3/Quartz Hybrid Metal Matrix Composite Using Taguchi Method

Abstract

The increased demand for wear-resistant and low-weight components in the automobile industry has led to the utilization of aluminum metal matrix composite parts due to their improved performance. The current work focused on optimizing the tribological factors such as applied load, rotational speed, and percentage weight fraction of the reinforcing particles for minimum dry sliding wear rate of Al6061/nano-Al2O3/quartz hybrid composite fabricated by stir casting. The optimization is performed by using the Taguchi L27 orthogonal array experimental plan, and the result is analyzed by the help of analysis of variance (ANOVA). The result of the optimization reveals that the optimum levels of factors for the minimum wear rate are 10 N, 200 rpm, and 12.5%. Furthermore, the ANOVA result depicts that the applied load has the highest impact (87.83%) on the wear rate, followed by rotational speed (10.06%) and percentage weight fraction of the reinforcement (1.60%). The developed linear regression model reveals that the applied load and the rotational speed have a positive relation with the sliding wear rate. However, the percentage weight fraction of the reinforcement has a negative relation. The confirmation test proves that the predicted value of wear rate using the regression equation at optimum levels has a closer agreement with the experimental result having a 6.934% error. Furthermore, the physical property test reveals that the rise in the weight percentage of quartz particles results in a corresponding increase in the percentage porosity of the hybrid composite.