WEAR BEHAVIOUR OF SIC REINFORCED AL6061 ALLOY METAL MATRIX COMPOSITES BY USING TAGUCHI’S TECHNIQUES

Madeva Nagaral, Shivananda B K, Shambhuling V S, V Auradi

Abstract: In this present work, an attempt has been made to optimize the wear properties of Al6061- SiC particulate composites. The composites containing 6 to 9 wt% of Silicon Carbide in steps of 3 wt% were prepared using liquid metallurgy route in particular stir casting technique. For each composite, reinforcement particles were preheated to a temperature of 300°C and then dispersed in steps of two into the vortex of molten Al6061 alloy to improve the wettability and distribution. Dry sliding wear test method was used to conduct the experiments by using Ducom made pin-on-disc wear testing machine. Twenty seven experiments were carried out with the help of Taguchi L27 Orthogonal array. The influence of applied load, sliding speed and sliding distance on volumetric wear loss was estimated. Smaller the better parameter was chosen to optimize the wear process of prepared composites. Results show that applied load has the highest influence followed by speed and sliding distance

Keywords: Al-6061Alloy, SiC, Wear Properties, Metal Matrix Composites, Stir Casting

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2014.0315150