Structure Property Correlation of Al Based MMC Reinforced with Cu Coated Rice Husk Ash SiO2 Particles

Abstract

Metal coated reinforcements in metal matrix composites are advancing in the field of engineering to produce high quality composites by liquid metallurgy route due to improvement of wettability between reinforcement and matrix. In the present study, a comparative analysis of mechanical properties was carried out on Al based composite (with varying wt% of Mg) reinforced with uncoated and Cu coated RHA (rice husk ash) SiO 2 particles. Tensile testing results of the composites indicate that UTS and YS of the composites reinforced with Cu coated SiO 2 particles was significantly higher than uncoated particles. The Cu coated SiO 2 particles act as a protrusion over the matrix carrying the major portion of the applied tensile load and thus composites are protected from failure. When Mg reaches 1.5 wt%, wettability of matrix with reinforcement is maximum, leading to the formation of hard compounds such as CuO, CuAlO 2 and Al 2 CuMg at interface. This enhances interfacial bonding strength as well as load transfer from matrix to reinforcement, which leads to higher tensile strength along with ductility.

Density, Hardness, and Wear Responses of Rice Husk Ash Reinforced Aluminium Composites

“…increases the material's hardness. This is mainly due to the presence of SiO2, the RHA's most frequent component, which has a higher hardness than aluminium [27]. As a result, the load is shifted from the softer matrix to the harder RHA particles, which gives better plastic deformation resistance [28].…”

Rice Husk Ash Reinforced Aluminium Metal Matrix Composites: A Review

“…Aluminium alloy and RHA particles have different coefficients of thermal expansion. During solidification, strain fields emerge around RHA particles when the coefficient of thermal expansion is changed [93]. The UTS, YS, and percent E of Al-Mg (1.5 percent)-Cu-coated RHA (SiO2) composites were 52, 32.95, and 15.83 percent higher, respectively, than the composite reinforced with uncoated SiO2 particles [94].…”

Coated and uncoated reinforcements metal matrix composites characteristics and applications – A critical review

“…The microhardness of composites will increase when Cu coated reinforcements are reinforced. When reinforcement is coated with Cu, yield, and ultimate tensile strength increased significantly compared to uncoated (Deshmukh et al, 2015;Maqbool et al, 2013;Mousavian et al, 2005;Pourhosseini et al, 2018). Copper coating provides low efficacy EMI shielding relative to nickel coating (Tzeng & Chang, 2001).…”