Development of Surface Modified Aluminium Alloy with Various Ceramic Particles using Gas Tungsten Arc GTA as a Heat Source to Enhance the Surface Hardness and Wear Resistance

Abstract

Critical industrial components are prone to rapid degradation due to aggressive operating newlineconditions. The reason behind the accelerated deterioration of parts and their eventual failure are newlinedue to material damage by high relative motion between mating surfaces, corrosive media, newlineextreme temperatures, and cyclic stresses. Research efforts are continuously aiming at newlinedeveloping methods to improve hardness and wear resistance on the surface of materials for newlinevarious applications. A protective coating and surface alloying of the component to combat wear newlineare now acknowledged globally as the first level of defence to reduce the damage. The surface newlinewear resistance of soft material such as aluminium can be improved by reinforcing the surface newlinewith ceramic or metal oxide particles using thermal techniques like Chemical Vapour Deposition newline(CVD), Physical Vapour Deposition (PVD), plasma spraying, sputtering, laser cladding, thermal newlineoxidation heat treatment, friction stir processing. Coatings produced by various processes are susceptible to peeling off from the substrate because of the adverse service conditions. A surface that would withstand adverse operating conditions is needed to perevent damage and failure of components. In order to achieve such surface, plasma spraying, sputtering, laser cladding, thermal oxidation heat treatment, friction stir processing processes are cuttently employed. newlineThe thermal spraying or hard anodising processes do not provide sufficient adhesion to the newlinebase substrate, which reduces the coating durability. In the case of FSP, selection of sizes, design newlineof the pins, restriction of position of the sample due to the orientation of the machine and tool and newlinekey hole formation are major limitations. Also, the speed of the process is usually slower than newlinethat of fusion welding. Laser cladding has limited flexibility due to the high cost and the newlinedifferent coefficients of absorption of laser energy associated with different materials. In order to avoid these problems, GTA is used for surface alloying...