EFFECT OF SILICON CARBIDE PERCENTAGE ON FRACTURE TOUGHNESS OF ALUMINIUM SILIOCN CARBIDE METAL MATRIX COMPOSITES

Nidhish B N, Sijo M T

Abstract: Metal matrix composites are composites in which one component will be a metal and other metal or non metal. It has wide applications in various fields like automobile, turbines blades etc which needs good mechanical properties. This thesis work studies about Aluminium Silicon Carbide metal matrix composites and their properties. Earlier studies revealed that as the percentage of Silicon Carbide is increased the properties get increased up to a limit and fracture toughness gets reduced beyond that. Here, in this work different percentage of SiC is added and fracture toughness is analyzed in terms of Stress intensity factor since fracture toughness cannot be calculated directly. Both software simulation and experimental methods has been done to find out the best percentage composition.

Keywords: Metal matrix composites, Aluminium Silicon Carbide, Fracture Toughness, Stress Intensity Factor

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2014.0311069