Parametric study of the dry sliding wear behaviour of AA6082-T6/SiC and AA6082-T6/B4C composites using RSM

Abstract

In this paper a parametric study of the wear behaviour of Aluminum matrix composites has been carried out. AA6082-T6/SiC and AA6082-T6/B4C composites were fabricated using stir casting technique. The percentage of reinforcement was taken as 5, 10, 15 and 20 wt.% for both SiC and B4C particulates. Dry sliding wear tests were conducted using pin-on-disc apparatus at room temperature and process optimization was done using Response surface methodology (RSM). Weight percentage (wt.%) of reinforcement, sliding speed, load and sliding distance were the four process parameters considered to analyse these composites wear behaviour. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that sliding distance exerted the highest contribution (60.24 %) to AA6082-T6/SiC wear, followed by sliding speed (14.28 %), load (11.88 %) and reinforcement content (4.31 %). The same trend was found in AA6082-T6/B4C composites with slightly different contribution values, namely sliding distance (63.28 %), sliding speed (14.02 %), load (10.10 %) and reinforcement content (4.05 %). RSM analysis revealed that increases in the reinforcement content and sliding speed reduce the wear rate in both composites. On the other hand, increases in load and sliding distance led to higher AA6082-T6/SiC and AA6082-T6/B4C composites wear. The two predictive models were validated by conducting confirmation tests and certified that the developed wear predictive models are accurate and can be used as predictive tools for wear apllications.