Mechanical and Machining Properties Analysis of Al6061-Cu-Reinforced SiC_P Metal Matrix Composite

Serajul Haque, Prem Kumar Bharti, Akhtar Hussain Ansari

Mechanical Engineering Department, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India.
Mechanical Engineering Department, Integral University, Lucknow, India.
Mechanical Engineering, Azad Institute of Engineering and Technology, Lucknow, India.

DOI: 10.4236/jmmce.2014.21009                

Abstract

The metal matrix composite (MMC), despite of its high stiffness, strength, corrosion resistance, wear resistance, non-react with chemicals and so many other tailored qualities which are never obtained in alloy of metals, has limited utilization due to the high cost of fabrication. In this study, a modest attempt has been made to find out the process parameters at which best mechanical properties of Al6061, 4% Cu and reinforced 5% SiC_P ceramic MMC can be obtained. The addition of 4% Cu in Al6061 is more or less comparable to the composition duralumin, which are widely used in aerospace applications. SiC_P is hard and has linear thermal expansion at high temperature. With reinforcement of SiC_P in Al6061-Cu alloy, it can be postulated that hardness of MMC retains at high temperature applications. An analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and linear regression was used for analysis of data with the help of SPSS (Version-17.0). Independent parameters are five levels of pouring rates (1.5 cm/s, 2.0 cm/s, 2.5 cm/s, 3.0 cm/s and 3.5 cm/s), and material type (Al6061 + 4% Cu alloy and Al6061 + 4% Cu, reinforced 5% SiCp MMC processed using stir casting technique) and dependent parameters are hardness and impact strength material removal rates of workpiece. It is found that at different pouring rates material hardness and impact strength of workpiece are highly significant but the material removal rate of workpiece is having no significance value. At pouring rate of 2.5 cm/s and 700℃ ± 5℃ pouring temperature, optimum values of hardness and impact strength are observed as compared to other values of pouring rates (1.5 cm/s, 2.0 cm/s, 3.0 cm/s and 3.5 cm/s). Material Removal rate for work pieces of Al6061 + 4% Cu alloy is less as compared to MMC. So it can be concluded that MMC has better machining ability compared to Al6061 + 4% Cu alloy. Material removal rate of Al6061 + 4% Cu, reinforced 5% SiCP MMC has maximum values at 1.5 cm/s pouring rate compared to 2.0 cm/s, 2.5 cm/s, 3.0 cm/s and 3.5 cm/s pouring rates. With reinforcement of 5% SiC trend of mechanical properties is same, but the hardness and impact strength of MMCs are increased by 25% and 20% respectively. Also it is observed from scanning electron microscopy (SEM) that at pouring rate 2.5 cm/s a better homogeneity can be obtained.

Keywords

MMC; Al6061 + 4% Cu Alloy; SiC Particulate; Stir Casting Technique; Mechanical Properties; Scanning

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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