Abstract
The current work focuses on enhancing wear resistance due to the presence of reinforcements and the effect of ageing treatment on hybrid composites of Al6061-SiC+B4C. By varying weight percentage, two kinds of reinforcements, viz. silicon carbide and boron carbide, were prepared for hybrid composites by the liquid state process known as the method of stir casting. The solutionising temperature of 550 °C for 2 hours and ageing temperature of 100-200°C at different time intervals were used for both Al6061 alloy and its composites during heat treatment. Microstructural and mechanical characterisation were carried out using a standard testing procedure. Compared to Al6061 matrix alloy, artificially peak aged composites show 100-140% improvement in hardness due to harder reinforcements and precipitation of solute rich secondary phases during ageing treatment. Overall, an 80-100% increase in wear resistance observed during peak ageing of hybrid composites. Analysis of Al6061 matrix alloy wear out surface shows extensive grooving and ploughing of the surface with the matrix material smear at many spots. The presence of tribolayer in Al6061-SiC+B4C composites shows a smoother surface than the Al6061 matrix alloy, which results in an excellent lubrication effect during an improvement in wear resistance. The wear surface of base aluminium alloy doesn’t show the existence of iron in the tribolayer. The research work is significant in forming a thermally activated wear-resistant metallic tribolayer with good tribological properties.
Highlights
For decades Al6061 alloy has been extensively utilised in automobile and aerospace applications due to its moderate temperature, high strength, and excellent corrosion resistance
The matrix Al6061 alloy and Hybrid metal matrix composites (HMMC) were measured for Brinell hardness number (BHN)
As-cast BS33 HMMC showed an increase in BHN value of 92 BHN than the as-cast matrix alloy, BS15, and BS24
Summary
For decades Al6061 alloy has been extensively utilised in automobile and aerospace applications due to its moderate temperature, high strength, and excellent corrosion resistance. Copper, lead, magnesium, nickel, and titanium, and their alloys are significant non-ferrous metals and alloys. Age hardening is the prominent heat treatment process used to increase the specific strength of several aluminium alloys [1,2,3]. The primary purpose of ageing treatment of these alloys (Al-Mg-Si) is to obtain a systematically growing enormous number of uniformly distributed fine intermediate precipitates (Mg2Si) in the matrix. From the last two to three decades, efforts have been focused on exploring lower density reinforcements for developing good tribological composites. Hybrid metal matrix composites (HMMC) have several tasks like deprived wettability and indecorous distribution of reinforcements
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