Experimental evaluation of mechanical, wear and corrosion properties of AA5083/graphite metal matrix composite prepared using compocasting process

Abstract

In most of the engineering applications such as aviation, defence, marine and automotive requires components with light weight and along with favorable mechanical properties; this demand perhaps satisfied by metal matrix composites (MMCs) of aluminium by virtue of its distinguished achievement. Also MMCs suffer from insufficient process stability, in-adequate economic efficiency and reliability. In the present research work an experiment was developed to synthesize metal matrix composite adopting Aluminium Alloy (AA) 5083 as matrix material reinforced with graphite particulates (6 wt %, 8 wt % & 10 wt %) using two stage in-situ stir casting process. Experiments were implemented to analyze mechanical and tribological properties like ultimate tensile strength, microhardness, wear characteristics and corrosion properties. From the above investigations, it is revealed that microhardness increases with decrease in tensile strength with upsurge in more wt % of reinforcement. Due to the very high self-lubricating property of graphite significant reduction in wear can be observed with deepen in wt % of graphite. Also corrosion rate decreases with more amount of graphite particulate when compared with base matrix material.