Presence of various amount of B4C reinforcement (2, 4 & 6% wt.) in Al6061 alloy on the hardness and tensile behaviour is studied in the present work. The influence of artificial aging due to presence of reinforcement on Al6061 alloy also evaluated. Brinell hardness and failure behaviour during tensile loading which impact the growth of failure physiognomies have been confirmed. The conventional age hardening treatment at three aging temperatures (100, 150 and 200°C) is performed on the composites, peak hardness and ultimate tensile strength variations at three aging temperatures is critically analysed. Lower temperature aging shows enhancement of hardness by 170% and ultimate tensile strength by 90%. The best results obtained during peak aging at 100°C is subjected to transmission electron microscope (TEM) analysis to look into the type of intermetallic responsible to strain the matrix alloy. TEM study recognises the Mg2Si phase formation during peak aging. Precipitation of this intermetallic phase and presence of harder reinforcements leads to the enhancement of hardness and nucleation of void growth failure during artificial aging treatment.
The current work focuses on enhancing wear resistance due to the presence of reinforcements and the effect of ageing treatment on hybrid composites of Al6061-SiC+B4C. By varying weight percentage, two kinds of reinforcements, viz. silicon carbide and boron carbide, were prepared for hybrid composites by the liquid state process known as the method of stir casting. The solutionising temperature of 550 °C for 2 hours and ageing temperature of 100-200°C at different time intervals were used for both Al6061 alloy and its composites during heat treatment. Microstructural and mechanical characterisation were carried out using a standard testing procedure. Compared to Al6061 matrix alloy, artificially peak aged composites show 100-140% improvement in hardness due to harder reinforcements and precipitation of solute rich secondary phases during ageing treatment. Overall, an 80-100% increase in wear resistance observed during peak ageing of hybrid composites. Analysis of Al6061 matrix alloy wear out surface shows extensive grooving and ploughing of the surface with the matrix material smear at many spots. The presence of tribolayer in Al6061-SiC+B4C composites shows a smoother surface than the Al6061 matrix alloy, which results in an excellent lubrication effect during an improvement in wear resistance. The wear surface of base aluminium alloy doesn’t show the existence of iron in the tribolayer. The research work is significant in forming a thermally activated wear-resistant metallic tribolayer with good tribological properties.
Aluminium casting alloy LM4 (EN 1706 AC-45200) composites with TiB 2 (1, 2, and 3 wt.%) as reinforcements were produced using the two-stage stir casting method. OM and SEM study shows uniform and homogeneous reinforcement distribution in LM4 + TiB 2 composites. As-cast composites were subjected to single-stage solution treatment at 520°C for 2 h and multistage solution treatment at 495 and 520°C for 2 and 4 h, followed by hot water quenching at 60°C and aging at 100 and 200°C for different time intervals. The hardness of as-cast and artificially aged composites were compared in both conditions. Compared to as-cast LM4 alloy, 20-45% improvement in hardness was observed for LM4 + TiB 2 as-cast composites. 60-150% improvement in hardness was observed in artificially aged LM4 + 3 wt.% TiB 2 composites when aged at 100 and 200°C during peak aged conditions. TEM images confirmed the presence of primary strengthening solute-rich phases after age hardening treatment such as θ'-Al 2 Cu and θ"-Al 3 Cu, which are responsible for hardness increment. An artificial neural network (ANN) model was created to predict the hardness trend of these composite samples using MATLAB R2021b, and results proved that the ANN model developed can be utilized as an effective tool to predict the hardness of treated composite samples.
The present work aims to improve the microstructure and hardness related properties of age hardened Al6061-SiC reinforced composites produced by a two stage stir casting method. Three composites with 2, 4, and 6wt. % (35-40μm) of SiC reinforcement are subjected to microstructural examination and hardness test at different locations to analyse the uniform distribution of the reinforcements in the matrix. As-cast composites are solution-treated at 558°C, followed by an aging treatment conducted at 100, 150, and 200°C, during which peak hardness values are noted. The peak aged samples are subjected to hardness and wear tests. In line with the objectives, ranges from 80-100% and 120-145% additional increase in hardness values are observed over as-cast alloy during the aging treatment conducted at 100, 150 and 200°C, respectively. Lower temperature aging shows substantial improvement in hardness and wear resistance over high temperature aging in each respective group. Also higher weight percentages of reinforced composites show excellent wear resistance, due to the presence of eroded iron particles from the counter surface which is regarded as a beneficial effect during the wear test. The presence of SiC particles provides more sites for the nucleation of fine precipitates. These fine precipitates hinder the movement of dislocation and thus increases hardness as well as wear resistance after the precipitation hardening treatment.
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