Fabrication of wear resistant nanocomposite and its mechanical properties: A step towards sustainability

Abstract

Nowadays, particulate reinforced aluminium composites are appealing structural materials for numerous applications, such as automotive and aerospace, due to their low weight and high specific strength. Nanocomposite morphology and interfacial properties may alter when nano sized particles are reinforced with an aluminium matrix. The addition of nano reinforcement of aluminium oxide particle improve the mechanical strength of base alloy and a further improvement in mechanical properties may be enhanced by grain refinement processed under multi axial forging technique. The present study demonstrates the synthesis of wear resistant nanocomposite. It also investigates the effect of multi axial forging on microstructure, mechanical properties and wear behaviour of aluminium based nanocomposite. Optical microscopy and electron backscatter diffraction techniques were used for microstructural characterization. The fractography and worn surface analysis were examined by using scanning electron microscopy. Energy dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy is used to show the presence of nanoparticles in casting. After three multi axial forging passes, the average grain size was reduced up to 4.2 μm as cast and 1.15 μm in nanocomposite. The wear resistance, microhardness and tensile strength of multi axial forging processed nanocomposite were significantly improved. All improved mechanical and wear properties cause the material one step towards sustainability.