Study on Tribological Behaviour of Al/SiC/MoS2 Hybrid Metal Matrix Composites in High Temperature Environmental Condition

Abstract

The current study investigates the tribological behaviour of aluminium hybrid composite reinforced with SiC and MoS2 at various temperature environments. The hybrid metal matrix composites have been fabricated through compo casting method by reinforcing different sizes of SiC (10, 20, 40 μm) at various weight fractions (5%, 10% & 15%) with 5059 aluminium alloy, meanwhile the addition of Molybdenum disulphide (MoS2) is fixed at 2%. Tribological behaviour of composites was evaluated based on wear loss and friction coefficient by using pin on disc apparatus. Along with particle size and weight percentage of SiC, load, sliding velocity, sliding distance and temperature were considered as process parameters and L27 orthogonal array was selected to perform the experiments. Through Taguchi and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) method optimum sliding condition for reduced wear loss and the significance of each parameter on wear behaviour of the composite were identified. Temperature and load predominantly affects the tribological behaviour of aluminium hybrid composite. It was found that the wear resistance is high when smaller particles were reinforced at maximum percentage (15%) and the results were supported with worn surface SEM images.