Mechanical and microstructure behaviour of WSC/SiC/Al composites synthesized with and without ultrasonic treatment

Abstract

In this research, aluminium composites were fabricated using two alternative casting methods namely, traditional stir casting and ultrasonic-aided stir casting technique. The aluminium composites were manufactured by reinforcing them with three different concentrations of waste spent catalyst and silicon carbide (0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 wt-%), respectively. The microstructural and mechanical behaviour of aluminium composites synthesised using both methods were studied and compared. The microstructure of the aluminium composite obtained by the stir casting technique with ultrasonic treatment resulted in a homogeneous dispersion of reinforcement particles and grain size refinement. Moreover, the overall test results showed that the ultrasonic-aided stir-casting technique improves the microstructure and mechanical behaviour of the composites when compared to the traditional stir-casting approach.