Author : Srinivas Reddy Mungara 1
Date of Publication :17th May 2017
Abstract: Aluminium metal matrix composites (AMMCs) have considerable applications in aerospace, automotive and military industries due to their high strength to wear ratio, stiffness, light weight, good wear resistance and improved thermal and electrical properties. Ceramic particles such as Al2O3, SiC are the most widely used materials for reinforcement of aluminium. Boron carbide (B4C) could be an alternative to SiC and Al2O3 due to its high hardness (the third hardest material after diamond and boron nitride). In the present study, an effort has been made to develop and study the mechanical properties such as Tensile strength, Compression strength, hardness and density measurement of Al7050-B4C metal matrix composites. The composites were prepared by stir casting route (liquid metallurgical technique) in which amount of reinforcement is varied from 2-8 wt% in steps of 2 wt%. In case of each prepared composites of Al7050-B4C, the reinforcement particles were pre-heated to a temperature of 5000Cand mixed with Potassium titanium fluoride before adding into the vortex of the molten metal to improve wettability and distribution of B4C particles. The microstructural studies were carried out using scanning electron microscope which shows the uniform distribution of B4C particulates in the matrix alloy. EDS analysis will be carried out to analyze the microstructure and the dispersion of the reinforced particles in the alloy matrix. The tensile strength and compression strength Al7050 and Al7050-B4C were carried out using UTM and hardness test using Brinell hardness tester, which results in increase in tensile strength, compression strength and hardness of the composites as the increase on wt% of B4C, The obtained results were compared with ascast Aluminium Alloy.
Reference :
-
- M.K. Surappa, P. K. Rohatgi, Preparation and properties of cast aluminium-ceramic particle composites, Journal of materials science, 16(1981), p 983-993.
- J.W. Kaczmar, K .Pietrzak, W. Wlosinski, The production and application of metal matrix composite materials, Journal of material processing technology, 106(2000), p 106:58-67.
- R.M. Mohanty, K. Balasubramanian, S.K. Seshadri, Boron carbide-reinforced aluminium 1100 matrix composites: fabrication and properties, Materials science and engineering, 498(2008), p 42-52.
- K.H.W. Seah, J. Hemanth, S.C. Sharma, Mechanical properties of aluminium/quartz particulate composites cast using metallic and non metallic chills, Materials and design, 24(2003), p 87-93
- M.A. Belger, P.K Rohatgi, N. Gupta, Aluminium composite casting incorporating used and virgin foundry sand as particle reinforcements, solidification processing of metal matrix composites-Rohatgi honorary symposium, TMS Annual Meeting (2006), p 95-104
- S. Sulaiman, M. Sayuti, R. Samin, Mechanical properties of the as cast quartz particulate reinforced LM6 alloy matrix composites, Journal of materials processing technology, 201(2008), p 731-735.
- T.R. Chapman, D.E. Niesz, R.T. Fox, T. Fawcett, Wear-resistant aluminium-boron-carbide cermets for automotivebrake applications,Wear,236(1999),p81-87.
- W.R. Blumenthal, G.T. Gray, T.N. Claytor, Response of aluminium-infiltrated boron carbide cermets to shock wave loading, Journal of material science, 29/17(1994), p 4567-4576.