The choice of suitable inoculants in the grain refinement process and subsequent enhancement of the characteristics of the composites developed is an important materials research topic, having wide scope. In this regard, the present work is aimed at finding the appropriate composition and size of fly ash as inoculants for grain refinement of the aluminum AA 5083 composites. Fly ash particles, which are by products of the combustion process in thermal power plants, contributing to the large-scale pollution and landfills can be effectively utilized as inoculants and interatomic lubricants in the composite matrix–reinforcement subspaces synthesized in the inert atmosphere using ultrasonic assisted stir casting setup. Thus, the work involves the study of the influence of percentage and size of the fly ash dispersions on the tensile and impact strength characteristics of the aluminum AA 5083/7.5SiC composites. The C type of fly ash with the particle size in the series of 40–75 µm, 76–100 µm, and 101–125 µm and weight % in the series of 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, and 2.5 are selected for the work. The influence of fly ash as distinct material inoculants for the grain refinement has worked out well with the increase in the ultimate tensile strength, yield strength, and impact strength of the composites, with the fly ash as material inoculants up to 2 wt. % beyond which the tensile and impact characteristics decrease due to the micro coring and segregation. This is evident from the microstructural observations for the composite specimens. Moreover, the role of fly ash as material inoculants is distinctly identified with the X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) for the phase and grain growth epitaxy and the Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) for analyzing the characteristic X-Rays of the fly ash particles as inoculant agents in the energy spectrum.

The current study deals with the fabrication and investigation of wear characteristics of Aluminium 6061(Al6061) hybrid metal matrix composites (MMCs) processed through powder metallurgy technique. Al6061 hybrid MMCs involving fixed 2 wt% of coated/uncoated multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and varying weight percentages of graphene were fabricated through ball milling procedure. To enhance the scattering of MWCNTs in the matrix, MWCNTs were coated by means of copper through electroless deposition method. Dry sliding wear conduct of Al6061 MMCs was investigated using a pin-on-disc wear testing machine. It was found that at lower load, composites exhibited lower wear resistance than base alloy however at higher load, nanocomposites showed higher wear resistance. The research tried to find the effect of higher loads on the wear resistance. The composites were evaluated if they could give out reinforcements at higher loads during wear tests. The wear morphologies were reported using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and it was noticed that lower load abrasion was superior for the composites and base alloy although at higher loads adhesion was considered to be main reason for the wear of composites.