In this study, the machining behaviour of aluminium alloy (AA6061)/10% aluminium oxide (Al2O3)/10% silicon carbide (SiC) hybrid metal matrix composites was analyzed by Electric Discharge Machining (EDM). The stir casting method was used to fabricate the composite in a volume percentage of 80, 10, and 10 for AA6061, Al2O3 and SiC, respectively. The specimen was prepared in the size of 30 mm in diameter and 12 mm in thickness from the fabricated composite by the Wire-cut Electric Discharge Machining (WEDM) process. The fabricated specimens were machined using EDM by varying the input parameters of pulse-ON time (T–ON) in µs, pulse-OFF time (T–OFF) in µs, and gap current (GC) in amps at three different levels. The design of the experiment by the Taguchi method was used with the L9 orthogonal array. The impact of process parameters on output variables such as Surface Roughness (SR), Machining Time (MT) and Material Removal Rate (MRR) was studied, and an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was carried out to identify the most influencing parameter. The GC is observed as the significant input parameter on SR and MT as the percentage contribution of 33% and 47%, respectively. T–ON is identified as more significant than other parameters on MRR as the percentage contribution is 47%. The results show that T–ON time of 12 µs, T–OFF time of 4 µs, and GC of 14 amps yield the least value of 3.304 µm for SR, 12 minutes for MT, and a higher value of 0.037 mm3/min for MRR.
This study investigated the mechanical and microstructural properties of ZrO2 reinforced titanium metal matrix composites (TMMCs) fabricated using powder metallurgy. The base matrix of the Ti6Al4V alloy was reinforced with ZrO2 at mixing proportions of different wt. percentage points at 0, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Microstructure evaluation was carried out to study the bonding characteristics of the matrix and reinforcement, and it was confirmed that the reinforcement was homogenously mixed with the base matrix. The objective is to study the effect of zirconia on mechanical properties such as hardness, compression strength and thermal expansion coefficiency of Ti6Al4V alloy. The hardness, compression strength, and shrinkage rate are increased with the increase of ZrO2. Finally, it was observed that, 6 wt. percentage of ZrO2 reinforced composite showed better characteristics in that the hardness and compression strength were the highest among all the proportions used and the coefficient of thermal expansion was low. Due to these promising results, the fabricated ZrO2 reinforced Ti6Al4V composite can be a potential material for structural, aerospace and automotive applications.
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