Wear Optimization of Al/Sic/Gr Hybrid MMC Using Taguchi and ANOVA

Abstract

ABSTRACT:In this paper, study is on preparing hybrid metal matrix composites of Al 6061 alloy as base material by incorporating 6% SiC and varying 2 to 4 % of graphite particulates varying insteps of 2 by vortex method. The dry sliding wear test is performed using pin on disc wear test apparatus as per ASTM standards G -99 to study the wear and frictional properties of hybrid metal matrix composite. Taguchi's technique is implemented for designing of experiments. The analysis is performed using a L9 Orthogonal array, and Investigation to find the effect of applied load, sliding speed and track diameter on wear rate, during wear process was carried out using ANOVA technique. The wear rate was analysed using taguchi and the optimal parameters for minimizing the wear rate was determined. KEYWORDS:Hybrid MMC, Stir casting, Wear analysis, Taguchi optimization. I.INTRODUCTIONConventional materials has certain shortcomings in good combination of Strength, stiffness, toughness and density. In order to overcome these shortcomings and to meet the demand of modern day technology, composites are most important materials, Out of which Hybrid Metal Matrix Composites (HMMCs) possess high specific strength, toughness, impact strength and low sensitivity to temperature changes [1][2][3]. As a result, many of the current applications for HMMCs are widely used in the field of aerospace and automobile components, Aluminium based MMCS are still the subjects of research studies, because of their low density makes more advantageous in many applications. Among the various useful aluminium alloys, aluminium alloy Al 6061 is typically characterized by properties such as fluidity, castability, corrosion resistance and high strength-weight ratio. Due to its high wear loss nature it will not be applicable for many tribological applications. AMCs can be reinforced with SiC, Al2O3, B4C, TiC, TiB2, MgO, TiO2 and BN. To avoid this limitations, Al alloySiC particulate composites are being spread for the mechanical and the tribological applications. Therefore, the investigation of tribological and mechanical behavior of aluminum based materials is becoming increasinglyimportant. Addition of a hard ceramic phase to a relatively soft matrix alloy, commonly aluminium, improves the strength, creep performance, and wear resistance of the alloy [4,5].Number of studies have been done on the Al/SiCp [6][7][8] and Al/Graphite [9, 10] individually. Normally, the external lubricant plays a vital role in wear behavior. The addition of naturallubricant like graphite enhances the selflubricating capacity of the composites, though the wear behavior of Al/SiCp is good, which is essential in some of the applications where lubrication needs to be applied periodically, especially for wear parts which are difficult to access.Metal matrix composite is fabricated by the Stir casting technique, because it is economical and good adhesion takes place between the matrix and reinforcement."Radhika et al. [11] found taguchi technique as a valuable technique to deal with res...

Dry sliding wear performance on self-healing Al6061 composites

“…Somani (2018) used the Taguchi technique to optimize various reinforcements in composite development. The effect of different type of reinforcement, operating parameters such as speed and load on the dry sliding wear of composites was analyzed using standard statistical tools by Stojanovic and Ivanovic (2015), Stojanovic and Glisovic (2016), Varghese and Pradeep (2014), Reddy and Rao (2014), Bansal and Saini (2015). In all these studies, Taguchi-based techniques have been successfully used to optimize the process parameters.…”