The present study examined wear characteristics of A356/melon shell ash particulate composites. Dry-sliding the stainless steel ball against specimen disc revealed the abrasive wear behavior of the composites under loads of 2 and 5N. The composite showed lower wear rate of 2.182 × 10−4 mm3/Nm at 20 wt% reinforced material under load of 5N. Results showed that wear rate decreased significantly with increasing weight percentage of melon shell ash particles. Microstructural analyses of worn surfaces of the composites reveal evidence of plastic deformation of matrix phase. The wear resistance of A356 increased considerably with percentage reinforcement. In other words, the abrasive mass loss decreased with increasing percentage of reinforcement addition at the both applied loads. The control sample suffered a highest mass loss at 5 N applied load.

In a bid to address environmental challenges associated with the management of waste Coca cola glass bottle, this study set out to develop glass ceramic materials using waste coca cola glass bottles and magnesite from Sakatsimta in Adamawa state. A reagent grade chrome (coloring agent) were used to modify the composition of the coca cola glass bottle;  X-ray fluorescence(XRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Thermo gravimetric analysis (TGA) were used to characterize raw materials, four batches GC-1= Coca cola glass frit +1%Cr2O3, GC-2=97% Coca cola glass frit+ 2% magnesite+1%Cr2O3, GC-3=95% Coca cola glass frit+ 4%magnesite+1%Cr2O3, GC-4=93%Coca cola glass frit+ 6%magnesite+ 1%Cr2O3 were formulated and prepared. Thermal Gradient Analysis (TGA) results were used as a guide in selection of three temperatures (7000C, 7500C and 8000C) used for the study, three particle sizes -106+75, -75+53, -53µm and 2 hr sintering time were also used, the sinter crystallization route of glass ceramic production was adopted. The samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), the density, porosity, hardness and flexural strength of the resulting glass ceramics were also measured. The resulting glass ceramic materials composed mainly of wollastonite, diopside and anorthite phases depending on composition as indicated by XRD and SEM, the density of the samples increased with increasing sintering temperature and decreasing particle size. The porosity is minimal and it decreases with increasing sintering temperature and decreasing particle size. The obtained glass ceramic materials possess appreciable hardness and flexural strength with GC-3 and GC-4 having the best combination of both properties.

The wear and hardness property of thermally aged antimony-modified A356-type Al-Si-Mg alloy produce through sand casting process has been investigated. The antimony (Sb) was added in a trace amount (0.01%) to modify and cause refinement of microstructure which led to an increase in hardness with a decrease in wear loss of the alloy. The study involve production of antimony-modified Al-Si-Mg alloy, thermal ageing treatment, wear test, hardness measurement, microstructure and surface morphology examination. Five samples of the produced alloy were subjected to solution heat treatment (T6) at 540 o C for a soaking time of 1hour, quenched in warm water, 40 o C and then subjected to thermal ageing treatment at 120 o C for 1-4hours at one hour interval. One of the samples was further aged at 180oC for a soaking time of 2hours. The samples were then subjected to wear test using Anton paar wear testing machine and the wear rate was found to be decreasing as the soaking time is increased. The wear rate value decreases from 0.1223mm3/N/m (control) to 0.003909mm 3 /N/m (for soaking time of 4hours at 120 o C) indicating a decrease of 68.04%. The hardness value increases from 4.91 (control) to 8.43 (for soaking time of 4hours at 120 o C) indicating an increase of 41%. Improvement in hardness value can be attributed to fine coherent clusters precipitate which serves as obstacles to the movement of dislocation. SEM micrograph shows the wear track of the specimen with the least wear lost while optical microscopy was used to reveal the microstructure of all the samples used.