Mechanical Behaviour of Micro and Nano Scaled Silicon Carbide Reinforced Al 6063 Metal Matrix Composite

Abstract

In this research study Al 6063 is used as the base matrix element, due to less weight, high specific strength, impact strength and good mechanical properties. Further, SiC are reinforced in Al 6063 matrix for enhancing its properties. Stir casting process has been accomplished for fabricating the (Al 6063-SiC) composites. In this experiment two various size of reinforcement particle are utilized, one of them is micro sized and another one is nano sized. Micro sized reinforcement particle has dimensions of (25-40µ), while nano sized particle consists dimensions of 500nm. The weight fraction of the micro and nano sized SiC particle taken in this experiment are in order of 0%, 2%, 4%, 6%, 8%, and 10% respectively. Various mechanical tests such as hardness, tensile tests and impact tests were conducted for determining the effect of micro and nano sized SiC reinforced aluminum matrix composites. The comparative study related with impact strength, hardness and tensile strength of micro and nano sized silicon carbide reinforced with aluminum matrix composites were shown in this work. There is an enhancement of mechanical properties has been observed with enhancement in weight percentage of micro sized silicon carbide, on other hand there is also a decrease in mechanical properties has been found while increasing the weight percentage of nano sized silicon carbide. The main objective of this paper is to enhance the mechanical properties of the Al 6063 metal matrix with reinforcing silicon carbide particle.