Studies on Erosion Wear Behaviour of Al-3Mg-10SiC Composite

Abstract

Aluminum based metal matrix composites (MMCs) offer potential for advanced structural
applications when high specific strength and modulus, as well as good elevated temperature
resistance along with light weight, are important. In the present work, aluminum alloy-silicon
carbide composite Al-3Mg-10SiC, developed using a stir casting technique is studied for wear
behavior.Aluminium matrix composites finds its application in various fields like automobiles,
aircraft, space equipment, structural components etc.Tribological characterization of aluminium
matrix composites is critical for increasing its life and performance, particularly in fields of
automobiles, aerospace and tooling, where failures from friction and wear can be
catastrophic.Wear and friction manifest ultimately in loss of money in the form of energy loss
and material loss. It leads to decrease in national productivity. Reduction in wear losses thus
becomes essential forquality life. Thus tribology knowledge is important and significant for
capital saving and hence this particular composite has been studied for tribological properties.
Solid particle erosion on Al-3Mg-10SiC was conducted under various parameters.
Microstructural characterization of the surfaces and cross sections, micro-hardness measurement,
X - ray diffraction studies were also studied.Implementation of design of experiments through
Taguchi and statistical techniques in analyzing the erosion behavior ofcomposites is discussed.
The dependence of the wear rate on the parameters is studied and the wear mechanism is
investigated by electron microscopy.
Variation of cumulative mass lose for different impingement angles were plotted and
analysed.Initial mass loss is high, then it becomes sluggish and again after sometime there is
sharp increase in mass loss. This increase is attributed to development of porous regions on the
surface and tearing of grains on the surface.

Individual effects of control parameters are also analysed.It was clear from the Taguchi analysis
that, of allthe parameters affecting the wear rate, “velocity” is the most significant parameter while
parameter “angle” also has some significant effect. Surface roughness is also measured.
It is evident that the predicted ANN results show a good agreement with the experimental
sets.The optimized ANN structure further permits to study the effect of each of the control input
parameters.
The hardness and tensile strength were also measured