EVALUATION OF ABRASIVE WEAR CHARACTERISTICS OF ALUMINIUM 7075-CENOSPHERE COMPOSITES

Manohar Simha M(1GA08ME030) Nitin N (1GA08ME034)

Global Academy Of Technology

Department of Mechanical Engineering PROJECT GUIDE Mr. D.V.RAVI KUMAR Assistant Professor, Department Of Mechanical Engineering, Global Academy Of Technology.

Synopsis
Metal-matrix composites (MMCs) exhibit the ability to withstand high tensile, fatigue and compressive stresses. Cenospheres (Microspheres) are hollow micro balloons made of aluminum silicate. Being a waste product of thermal power plants, they are relatively inexpensive. Cenospheres are hollow aluminum silicate microspheres obtained from the fly ash of coal-fired thermal power plants. Their diameters vary from 10 to 300 , with a typical wall thickness of about 5 10% of the diameter.

The current work involves development of an aluminum metal matrix composite with Aluminum 7075 as the matrix and fly ash cenospheres as the reinforcement. Stir casting is intended as the method to prepare castings. Different compositions of the castings are prepared by the stir casting route.

Abrasive wear studies are proposed to carry out for all the reinforced and unreinforced samples.
Structure property correlation studies are also intended to be carried out for the reinforced and unreinforced counterparts

Stages 1 2

Plan of Action Literature Survey Collection of raw materials for the proposed (Al 7075 and cenospheres) Melting and preparation of compositions (0, 2, 4, 6, 8% of cenospheres) Machining of the samples as per ASTM standards Abrasive wear testing of the machined samples Abrasive wear testing of the machined samples

Dates Completed Feb 10th Estimated completion date Feb 25th Estimated completion date March 9th Estimated completion date March 20th Estimated completion date April 10th Estimated completion date April 22th

4 5 6

Interpretation of the results and thesis preparation

Estimated completion date May 10th

LITERATURE SURVEY

Some Studies on Aluminium Fly Ash Composites Fabricated by Two Step Stir Casting Method
P. Shanmughasundaram, R. Subramanian, G. Prabhu
An attempt has was made to investigate its microstructure, mechanical, wear and corrosion behavior of composites the strengthening of aluminium alloys with a dispersion of fine particulates strongly. It has been observed that the density of the composites decreased with increasing fly ash reinforcement content. Increasing fly ash content resulted in increase in the tensile strength of the Al. However, the tensile strength begins to drop when the fly ash content exceeds 15wt% due to the decrease in solid solution strengthening and particle clustering. Wear resistance of the commercial Al was considerably enhanced by the addition of fly ash particles and the wear resistance of the composites was much superior to the unreinforced aluminium. It was observed that the high proportion of fly ash reinforcement shows the poor resistance to corrosion.

Fabrication of Al4.5% Cu alloy with fly ash metal matrix composites and its characterization
K.V. MAHENDRA, K. RADHAKRISHNA

In this investigation, an Al4.5% Cu alloy was used as the matrix and fly ash as the filler material. The fly ash was added in 5%, 10%, and 15wt.% to the molten metal The fluidity and density of the composites decreases, whereas the hardness increases with an increasing percentage of the fly ash particulates. The tensile strength, compression strength, and impact strength increase with an increasing percentage of fly ash particulates. The dry sliding wear resistance increases with an increasing percentage of fly ash. Corrosion increases with an increasing percentage of fly ash content. The MMC produced can be used for bearing applications, because of its good wear resistance.

Effect of reinforcement of flyash on sliding wear, slurry erosive wear and corrosive behavior of aluminium matrix composite
M. Ramachandra, K. Radhakrishna

Al (12 wt% Si) was used as matrix material and up to 15 wt% of flyash particulate composite was fabricated using the stir casting technique. The wear and friction characteristics of the composite in the as-cast conditions were studied by conducting sliding wear test, slurry erosive wear test and fog corrosion test. The sliding wear behavior of the MMCs were investigated by varying parameters like normal load, percentage flyash, and track velocity. The results indicate that the wear resistance of the flyash reinforced material increased with increase in flyash content, but decreases with increase in normal load, and track velocity. Corrosion resistance of reinforced samples has decreased with increase in flyash content.

MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF FLY ASH REINFORCED ALUMINIUM ALLOY (Al6061) COMPOSITES

H.C. Anilkumar, H.S. Hebbar and K.S. Ravishankar
The stir casting method used to prepare the composites could produce uniform distribution of the reinforced fly ash particles. Three sets of composites with fly ash particle sizes of 4-25, 45-50 and 75100 m were used. Each set had three types of composite samples with the reinforcement weight fractions of 10, 15 and 20%. The Tensile Strength, Compression Strength and Hardness increased with the increase in the weight fraction of reinforced fly ash and decreased with increase in particle size of the fly ash. The ductility of the composite decreased with increase in the weight fraction of reinforced fly ash and decreased with increase in particle size of the fly ash. For composites with more than 15% weight fraction of fly ash particles, the tensile strength was seen to be decreasing.

Mechanical Properties and Microstructure Studies of Aluminium (7075) Alloy Matrix Composite Reinforced with Short Basalt Fibre R. Karthigeyan ,G. Ranganath , S. Sankaranarayanan In this research work, aluminium (7075) alloy composites containing different volume fraction of short basalt fibre were successfully developed through the stir casting process. The hardness of Al7075/basalt fibre composite increases as the addition of basalt fibre particles and the increment in hardness attributes to fibre particles dispersion in soft aluminium alloy matrix. The addition of short basalt fibre significantly improves the yield strength and the ultimate tensile strength of Al7075, when compared with that of unreinforced matrix. The ultimate tensile strength of Al 7075/Basalt fibre composite when reinforced with 6 vol. % is increased by 65.51%. The improvement in strength values under tensile loading occurs without affecting the tensile ductility.

Tensile and wear properties of aluminum composites

K.R. Suresh , H.B. Niranjan , P. Martin Jebaraj , M.P. Chowdiah

Beryl/AlSiMg composites containing 2.010.0% of beryl particles have been fabricated by squeeze casting. The matrix chosen for this work is ASM 356 AlSiMg alloy, Beryl chemically berylliumaluminumsilicate (Be3Al2(SiO3)6) was chosen as reinforcement fibre. The tensile strength of Alberyl squeeze cast composites show a peak strength of 216MPa at 6% beryl particle showing improvement of 11.7% The decrease in wear weight loss of 10% beryl reinforced squeeze cast was found to be 48% less than that of base matrix over a sliding distance of 2400 m, which was almost 1.2 times less than the sliding distance of 600 m.

Fly ash characterization and application in Albased Mg alloys S. Zahi , A.R. Daud
Al alloys were reinforced with different solid fly ash particles, via the liquid-phase route, i.e. casting method. The X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyses were used to identify the fly ash particles, and they were applied to the composite alloys. The composite was found to consist of small solid alumino-silicate particles that were predominantly spherical in shape, with improved grain structure. The fly ash was an excellent potential in improving the tribological and surface properties, and consequently the results could be an indicator of the ability to strength Al alloys.

Development of light weight ALFA composites

J. Babu Rao, D. Venkata Rao and N.R.M.R. Bhargava

In the present investigation, pure aluminium 5 to 15% (by weight) fly ash composites were made by stir casting route. Phase identification and structural characterization was carried out on fly ash by X-ray diffraction studies , Scanning electron microscopy and optical microscopy. The hardness of the composites increased whereas the density of the composites decreased with increasing the amount fly ash than the pure aluminium. Enhanced mechanical properties were observed with increasing amount of fly ash under compression. From this study it was concluded that industrial waste of fly ash was turn production of light weight composites; these light weight ALFA composites can be used for automobile industry.

SUMMARY OF LITERATURE SURVEY

Collection of raw materials for the proposed (Al 7075 and cenospheres)