Role of SiC on Mechanical, Tribological and Thermal Expansion Characteristics of B4C/Talc-Reinforced Al-6061 Hybrid Composite

• Published in: SILICON Vol. 12; no. 6; pp. 1491 - 1500
• Main Authors: Kumar, C Ramesh, Malarvannan, R Ravi Raja, JaiGanesh, V
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.06.2020; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Aluminum; Aluminum base alloys; Aluminum matrix composites; Boron carbide; Chemistry; Chemistry and Materials Science; Ductility; Elongation; Environmental Chemistry; Hard materials; Hybrid composites; Inorganic Chemistry; Lasers; Machinability; Materials Science; Metal matrix composites; Optical Devices; Optics; Original Paper; Photonics; Polymer Sciences; Silicon carbide; Solid lubricants; Talc; Tensile strength; Thermal expansion; Thermal resistance; Tribology; Wear resistance; Mechanical properties; MMC; Ceramics; Stir casting; Tribology
• ISSN: 1876-990X; 1876-9918
• DOI: 10.1007/s12633-019-00243-0

A hybrid SiC/B 4 C/Talc reinforced Al-6061 metal matrix composite with improved machinability, wear resistance and low thermal expansion is prepared and evaluated. The primary aim of this research is explicating the need and significance of SiC addition into hard B 4 C and solid lubricant talc-reinforced Al-6061 in mechanical, wear and thermal expansion properties. When higher volume of hard materials like B 4 C and SiC into aluminum matrix its ductility and machinability gets poor hence talc lubricator is used to avoid high brittle nature. The SiC/B 4 C/talc ceramic particles were reinforced into Al-6061 alloy by stir-casting technique. The hard ceramic particles SiC/B 4 C improved the mechanical, wear and thermal expansion coefficient at the same time addition of talc lubricator improved the ductility and machinability behavior. The improved tensile strength of 160.7MPa, yield strength of 145.8MPa and elongation of 7% was observed for composite contains SiC/B 4 C/talc of 10/3/2 wt.% with Al-6061. The 15wt.% SiC added aluminum MMC shows improved wear resistance of 44%. Similarly, the highest hardness of 67.03 BHN was achieved for composite contain 15wt.% of SiC content. The thermal expansion results show composite contain 15 wt% of SiC content offers very low thermal expansion coefficient(CTC) of 20.5E -6 C -1 .The SEM fractograph images revealed uniform dispersion of particle on aluminum matrix. The EDAX report of fractured portion shows higher B 4 C content, which reveals maximum brittleness zone.