Dry Sliding Wear behaviour of Aluminium-Red mud- Tungsten Carbide Hybrid metal matrix composites

Abstract

Red mud is an industrial waste obtained during the processing of alumina by Bayer's process. An attempt has been made to utilize the solid waste by using it as the reinforcement material in metal matrix composites. Red mud received from NALCO has been subjected for sieve analysis and milled to 42 nanometers using high energy ball mill. Red mud is used as a reinforcement material in Pure Aluminium matrix composite at 2%, 4%, and 6% weight at 100 microns level as well as 42 nano meters along with 4%Tungsten carbide by weight. Micro and Nano structured red mud powders, Tungsten carbide powder and Aluminium is mixed in a V-Blender, compacted at a pressure of 40 bar and samples are prepared by conventional sintering with vacuum as medium. In this current work, dry sliding wear characteristics at normal and heat treatment conditions are investigated with optimal combination of Aluminium, Tungsten carbide and different weight fractions of micro and nano structured red mud powder.