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Effect of 6 Wt.% Particle (B4C + SiC) Reinforcement on Mechanical Properties of AA6061 Aluminum Hybrid MMC

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Abstract

Aluminum based hybrid metal matrix composite with more than two particle reinforcement is very much popular for heavy duty application, and the proportion of these particle reinforcement can be controlled to achieve desired mechanical properties (strength and wear resistance). AA 6061 alloys popularly used in aircraft and automobile applications, tends to have inferior tribological property and therefore particle reinforcements are being made to strengthen the matrix. The prime objective of this investigation is to study the effect of varying wt.% of proportionate individual reinforcement (SiC and B4C) on the mechanical properties of a particular composition (6 wt.%) of AA 6061 hybrid composite. The present investigation is done to evaluate the dependance of hard particle reinforcements on the strength and elongation behaviour of hybrid composite. Hardness measurement and uniaxial loading techniques were used to characterize the mechanical properties of the as-cast hybrid composites, whereas OM, XRD and SEM analysis was done to study the distribution of reinforcement within the base (AA 6061) metal matrix phase. The improvement in mechanical properties, such as Vickers hardness, UTS, yield strength and elongation were presented and explained using various hypothesis proposed by previous studies. The role of clustering theory and effect of binary eutectic Mg2Si phase found to be key the enhanced mechanical properties of the hybrid composites. Addition of Alkaline Earth Metal (Mg) during the synthesis process have led to an increase in the elongation of hybrid composite with the increase in wt.% of reinforcement which is analogous to the effect of alkali metals (‘Na’ and ‘Li’) addition that helps in refining the Mg2Si Eutectic phase.

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The data collected from the experiments are true to their value. No fraudulent practices are used to generate the data.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to RINL, VIZAG Steel Plant for carrying out Optical Microscopy study and hardness measurement.

Funding

The entire work is funded by the authors and no separate funding is received.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, GIT, GITAM, Visakhapatnam, AP, 530 045, India

    Divakar Bommana, T. Rajesh Kumar Dora & A. Sunny Kumar

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Guwahati, Guwahati, Assam, 781039, India

    Divakar Bommana

  3. Department of Mechanical Engineering, ITER, SOA, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, 751 030, India

    N. Pallavi Senapati

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  1. Divakar Bommana
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  2. T. Rajesh Kumar Dora
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  3. N. Pallavi Senapati
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  4. A. Sunny Kumar
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Contributions

Divakar Bommana - Conceptualization, Data curation; T Rajesh Kumar Dora - Formal analysis, Writing - original draft; N Pallavi Senapati-Resources; A Sunny Kumar- Resources.

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Correspondence to T. Rajesh Kumar Dora.

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Bommana, D., Dora, T.R.K., Senapati, N.P. et al. Effect of 6 Wt.% Particle (B4C + SiC) Reinforcement on Mechanical Properties of AA6061 Aluminum Hybrid MMC. Silicon 14, 4197–4206 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12633-021-01210-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12633-021-01210-4

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