Recent Researches in Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development

Developments of Al-12Si alloys by reinforcing TiN particles

MALEK ALI1, ALI SAMER MUHSAN1, M.I. FADHEL1, M.A. ALGHOUL2, K. SOPIAN2 & A. ZAHARIM2 1 Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Multimedia University, 75450 Melaka, MALAYSIA 2 Solar Energy Research Institute, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor, MALAYSIA Email: malikali77@yahoo.com, mustafa.i.fadhel@mmu.edu.my, ksopian@eng.ukm.my, azami.zaharim@gmail.com
Abstract:- This study presents the mechanical properties of Al12% Si matrix composite reinforced (which can used in light devices and energy storage) by various amounts of Titanium Nitride (TiN) particles. Macrostructural studies have shown near uniform distribution of TiN particles in the matrix. The mechanical properties such as hardness and wear resistance are observed to be increased considerably compared to the matrix composite. The wear behaviour was investigated using a pin-on-disc wear testing machine with varying parameters such as normal load, reinforcements percentage and track velocity. The results suggested that the reinforced Al-12Si matrix composites showed significant improvement in their wear resistance accordingly with increasing the reinforcements percentage at different conditions. The microstructural study of the composites before wear test showed uniform distribution through the cross-section of the specimens and finer surfaces than matrix composite after wear test.

Keywords:- Al12Si alloys, Titanium Nitride (TiN) particles, reinforcement

1 Introduction
The industrial application of the light metal components enhances the efficiency of machines and reduces energy consumption. Aluminium/ Silicon alloys are known for their high strength-toweight-ratio, good castability, and high corrosion resistance. Therefore, they are being widely used in the aerospace and automobile industries such as aircraft structure, internal combustion engines, plain bearings, wheels, pistons, brake rotors for high speed trains and bicycles, etc. Although AlSi alloys meet many of the requirements for such applications, they are difficult to be lubricated and exhibit poor resistance to damage[1]. The wear of components made of AlSi alloys depend on number of material related parameters, i.e. shape, size, composition and distribution of micro constituents in addition to the operating conditions such as load, sliding speed, temperature, and environment and counter surface [2]. Several studies have shown the effect of different reinforcements on the wear behaviour of Al-Si alloys. As load is increased the oxide film becomes increasingly sensitive to bulk failure and transition to severe wear may take place. In another study, Li and Zhang et al., [3] have investigated the characterizations of Cold-sprayed TiN particles-

reinforced Al-alloy based composites from structures to tribological behaviour. It has been concluded that the sliding tests indicated that casting of AMMCs presented a relatively low friction coefficient and a much lower wear rate compared to pure Al-Si deposit and the incorporated TiN particles decrease significantly the adhesion between two sliding pairs. Cast Al-Si alloys usually have casting defects such as porosity and inclusion, which can greatly degrade the mechanical properties of the materials. Porosity is the most common defect in Al-Si castings that lead to microcrack initiation and propagation. Microporosity usually results from exsolution of dissolved gas from the melt and/or failure of interdendritic feeding [4]. To obtain a specific mechanical/physical property, ideally, the MMC should consist of fine particles distributed uniformly in a ductile matrix and with clean interfaces between particle and matrix. Out of the available methods of producing these composites, A powder metallurgy route is used for specific applications is most promising and economical for synthesizing the particle reinforced AMCs and is not only simple, but is easy to obtain shape [5-7]. The alloys qualities should include high strength; wear resistance, high modulus of elasticity, low

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thermal expansion, good machinability, and good deformability. By powder metallurgy (PM) Al-Si-X alloys provide such properties with less porosities comparing the casting process. The effects of rapid solidification make it possible to refine crystals. The effects of sliding speed and normal load are yet to be clearly understood. Therefore in this study an attempt is made to investigate the effect of sliding speed and normal load on wear behaviour of Al12Si/TiN composites.

speeds of 150 and 225 rpm for 282.6m distance per sample with supplied load of 10, 15 and 20 N at 60 mm distance from the centre of disk. These investigations were performed on the influence of different conditions (load, sliding speed, holding time and distance), as well as different reinforcements and percentages. Therefore, unreinforced eutectic Al-Si alloy was used as a reference.

2 Experimental
Al-12Si was used as matrix material. TiN particles were used as reinforcement in Al-12Si alloy. The particle size of TiN was approximately 10 micrometers and it was supplied by Stream Chemical, LTD. In the present study, the synthesis of the aluminium matrix composite used in the present study was carried out using PM. Mixtures of Al-12%Si powder with compositions of (5%, 15%, 25%wt TiN) were prepared. Mixtures were subjected to normal mixing for 2 hours at the speed of 20 rpm then compacted into pellets by 750 MPa applied for 3 min. 0.5g of the powder mixture was pressed into 1 pellet in a steel mold of 10mm internal diameter. Zinc stearate was used as a die wall lubricant. The green compacts of Al12%Si/TiN composites were sintered by tube furnace under protective argon gas atmosphere for 3 hours at 600C. SEM technique was used for microstructure examination of composites. Hardness measurement was carried out in order to investigate the influence of particulate weight fraction of TiN particles on the matrix hardness. Rockwell macro hardness machine was used to measure the samples hardness. Load of 60kg was applied and held for 5 seconds. To eliminate errors due to local non-homogeneity, 5 different points were taken for each sample and the average value was taken. pin-on-disk machine as in Fig. 1. Was used to measure the wear resistance of the samples, in which base frame holds the disc carrier spindle and the pin carrier assembly in a fixed orientation. The two assemblies are designed to maintain alignment between the pin and disc specimens so that flat-on-flat geometry can be used. The test was performed in pin on disc mode. The disk was rotated by DC motor, with two sliding rotation

Fig. 1. Pin-On-Disk Models for wear testing.

3 Results and discussion

3.1 Particles distribution and identification of phases
SEM micrographs of Al-12Si/TiN composites sintered at 600 C are shown in Fig. 2. The Al12Si/TiN composites with different ratio of TiN have a relatively uniform distribution in Al-12Si matrix as shown in Fig. 2 (A), (B), and (C). EDS results in Fig.3 (A), (B), and (C) showed: that the matrix at point X in the microstructure of Fig.2 (A) consisted of Al, reinforcement particle at point Y in the microstructure of Fig.2 (B) consisted of higher percentage of Ti and N, and point Z in Fig.2 (C) indicated the presence of Si. It is clear from Fig. 2 that the reinforcement particles of the composites are embedded in the aluminium matrix. A small agglomeration of TiN particles in the aluminium matrix has been noticed and this is mainly due to non homogeneity involved in mixing and blending process carried out before sintering. The microstructure evaluation also shows that, for a given series of composites, the size of the particles in the composites increases as the content increases. The microstructure of the particles also reveals that one big particle has been formed by the

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Recent Researches in Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development

agglomeration of many small particles together. The small particles are distributed homogenously in between the big particle and the particle size of the small particles is uniform.
(A)

(A)

(B) (B) Y

(C) (C) Z

Fig. 2. SEM micrographs of Al-12Si/TiN composites with different reinforcement of TiN (A) 5%(B) 10% (B) 15 % .

Fig. 3. EDS results for (A) Al as matrix of composites (B) TiN as reinforcements of composites (C) Si.

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Recent Researches in Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development

3.2

Hardness measurement

TiN are considered as promising reinforcing materials towards the development of Metal matrix composites due to its high hardness, melting point, chemical and thermal stabilities, wear resistance, solvency of other carbides, and good wetability and relative thermal stability with many binder materials [8]. Hardness test was conducted to compare the hardness of the Al-12Si before and after reinforcing with different percentages of TiN particles. Fig. 4 shows the relationship between the hardness and the percentages of the reinforcements. It can be easily noted from this figure, that the hardness was increased consistently with increasing percentage of reinforcements.

Fig.4. Effect of wt. % of TiN on the hardness of composites. Since TiN particles have very high hardness, the particles improve the average hardness of soft matrix of Al in terms of hardness. Generally improvement depends on the amount, particle size and uniformity of distribution of the particles. The uniformity of distribution of particles in the matrix, the strength of particle-matrix boundary and the mechanical properties of the matrix affected the overall hardness of the composite [9]. The hardness of the composites is increasing with increasing the weight fraction of the reinforcing particulates in aluminium matrix. This is due to the increase in the hard phase (TiN) with a concomitant decrease in ductility phase (matrix of composite).

removal of material [10]. While measuring the extent of wear, the two surfaces are brought into sliding contact at the beginning; the soft Al matrix between TiN particles undergoes severe deformation. Microcracking between the reinforcement particles and Al matrix increases with increasing sliding distance, and sliding speed lead to pull-out of reinforcements and form wear debris [11]. The alloy was added with TiN particles separately at varying contents. The percentages of addition of particles were 5%, 10% and 15% respectively. Basic wear curves (weight loss versus density) were obtained for all the samples at various loads, sliding speed and subsequently wear loss were calculated. The lost volumes were used for comparative study. In Fig.5 the wear of the samples were studied as a function of load at constant sliding velocity of 150 rpm and distance of 282.6 m. From this figure, it can be observed that with increasing the applied load from 10N to 20N passing through 15N, the wear of all samples increases gradually. This is due to the fact as the normal load increases frictional heat generates at the contact surface and hence strength of materials decreases. It also shows that the lost volume of Al12Si alloy was reduced significantly after adding the reinforcements, especially by increasing the amount of the reinforcement up to 15%. It can also be noted that the samples which were reinforced by TiN showed less wear in all applied loads comparing with TiC reinforced samples.

3.3

Wear behaviour under different loads and different sliding speed

The reinforcement with TiN particulates have been found attractive for the aluminum matrix because of its good wettability, which can result in a clean and strong interface, and enhances the resistance of the matrix to penetration and reduces subsequent

Fig.5. Wear behavior of Al-12Si matrix reinforced by various amounts of TiN particles at 150 rpm Fig.6 shows the effect of increase the sliding speed to 225 rpm on the wear behaviour of the samples. In general, it can be seen that wear of the

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samples was slightly increased after increasing the sliding rotation speed comparing with the previous case of 150 rpm. This is due to the fact that duration of rubbing is the same for all sliding speed, while the length of rubbing is more in case of higher speed [12].

Fig.6. Effect of increasing the sliding speed to 225 rpm on the wear behaviour of Al-12Si matrix reinforced by TiN particles .

4 Conclusions
Fabricating Al-Si eutectic alloys reinforced by TiN ceramic particles using PM technique was done successfully. TiN reinforced samples have shown higher wear resistance than unreinforced samples. Similarly, when the speed increases with different applied loads, TiN reinforced samples have exhibited higher wear resistance than the rest. Where, after adding 15% of TiN particles it showed that the loss wear in average has been decreased about 49.5% compared to the base sample. References: [1] Litian, H., Weimin, LJC., Investigation of tribological behavior of Al-Si alloy against itself lubrication by amines, Wear, 243, 2000, p.301-306. [2] Mandal, A., Murty, BS., Chakraborty, M., Wear behaviour of near eutectic Al-Si alloy

reinforced with in-situ TiB2 particles, Mater Sci and Eng A, 506, 2009, p. 27-33. [3] Natarajan, N., Vijayarangan, S., Rajendran, I., Wear behaviour of A356/25SiCp aluminium matrix composites sliding against automobile friction material, Wear, 261, 2006, p. 812-822. [4] Haizhi, Ye., Al-Si-Alloy Based Material for Engine Applications, J Mater Eng and Perform, 12, 2003, p. 282- 288. [5] Ceschini, L., Minak, G., Morri, A., Tensile and fatigue properties of the AA6061/20 vol. % Al2O3p and AA7005/10 Vol. % Al2O3p composites, Compos Sci and Technol, 66, 2006, p. 333-342. [6] Gupta, M., Lai, M O., Lim, CYH., Development of a novel hybrid aluminiumbased composite with enhanced properties, J Mater Process Technol, 176, 2006, p. 191-199. [7] Liu, ZW., Rakita, M., Han, Q., Li, JG., Microstructeral evolution of renforcements in the remelting in situ TiC/Al- 12Si composites treated by ultrasonic vibration. Mater Res Bull, 46, 2011, p. 1674-1678. [8] Farid, A., Guo, S., Yang, X., Lian, Y., Stainless steel binder for the development of novel Ticreinforced steel cermets, J of Univ of Sci and Technol Beij, 13, 2006, p. 546-550. [9] Yang, Q., Senda, T., Ohmori, A., Effect of carbide grain size on microstructure and sliding wearbehavior of HVOF-sprayed WC12% Co coatings, Wear, 254, 2003, p. 2334. [10] Abdulhaqq, AH., Jain, SC., Ghosh, PK., Subrata, R., Processing, microstructure, and mechanical properties of cast In-Situ Al(Mg, Ti)-Al2O3(TiO2) composite, Metall and Mater Trans A 37, 22009, p. 469-480. [11] Yang, Q., Senda, T., Ohmori, A., Effect of carbide grain size on microstructure and sliding wearbehavior of HVOF-sprayed WC12% Co coatings, Wear, 254, 2003, p. 2334. [12] Chowdhury, MA., Helali, MM., The Effect of Frequency of Vibration and Humidity on the Wear rate, Wear, 262, 2007, p. 198-203.

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