Optimization of mechanical and wear properties of functionally graded Al6061/SiC nanocomposites produced by friction stir processing (FSP)

Abstract

The objective of present work is to apply the friction stir processing (FSP) to fabricate functionally graded SiC particulate reinforced Al6061 composite and investigate the effect of SiC particle mass fraction distribution on the mechanical properties and wear behavior of Al6061/SiC composite. Regarding the obtained results in this work, with increasing SiC mass fraction, elongation decreased, but hardness enhanced. However, the optimized functionally graded composite with the highest tensile strength and wear resistance was achieved for composite with 10 wt% surface SiC. Also, the results showed that wear resistance and tensile strength decreased for composite with 13 wt% surface SiC, due to reinforcement particle clustering depending on high SiC mass fraction.