Investigations on tribological and machinability characteristics of aluminium hybrid metal matrix composites

Abstract

A new class of materials called metal matrix composites are emerging materials replacing conventional hard materials in many newlineapplications such as aerospace, automobiles and defence sectors etc., owing newlineto their unique high strength to weight ratios, wear and corrosion resistant newlineproperties. For last two decades Metal Matrix Composites (MMCs) are an newlineattractive and dynamic area for scientific analysis and research, foremost newlineMMCs have become practical engineering materials. Aluminium and magnesium are the light weight metals widely used in industrial and commercial application. Among which aluminium is most commonly used base material for composite development because of its easy processing and high strength to weight ratios properties. Aluminium based composites have major share among total volume of MMCs produced for commercial applications. Aluminium alloys incorporated with hard ceramic particles increases the aptness of these lightweight alloys in newlineapplications where wear is the predominant factor due to better stiffness and newlineenhanced strength with improved wear and corrosion resistance. newlineAluminium alloy is reinforced with many hard materials such as SiC, B4C, Al2O3 and TiC to fabricate the different type of composite newlinematerials for various applications. Apart from these conventional ceramic particles some researchers tried few others materials like fly ash, bagasse ash, marble dust and rock dust. Mostly all researches are focussing on improving the wear and corrosion resistance of the aluminium alloy. Among these reinforcements SiC is used with many matrix materials and better results newlinewere obtained. newline newline