EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF WEAR BEHAVIOUR OF A356-TiB2 METAL MATRIX COMPOSITES

Aluminium-Silicon (Al-Si) alloys have attractive physical and mechanical properties. They are light weight (app. 3x lighter than gray cast iron and steel), low cost of production (with sand casting technology), easy to machine and have satisfactory mechanical properties with good recycling possibilities (up to 95 %). Nevertheless, one of the major drawbacks of these alloys is their low wear resistance. In order to improve its wear characteristic many Particle reinforced Aluminium Matrix Composites (PAMCs) were developed using SiC, TiC, B4C, TiB2, Gr, MoS2, and fly ash as reinforcement particles by different methods (Stir casting, Compo casting, Powder Metallurgy, in-situ method using salts and spray deposition) and their wear characteristics were also studied But there is no research work done on wear characteristics of semisolid processed PAMCs. So a MMC of aluminium A356 reinforced with 5%TiB2 was developed by semi solid process and its dry sliding wear characteristic were studied using pin on disc machine with disc material of EN31 steel (55-60 HRC) under the condition at sliding velocity varies from 1m/s to 3m/s and applied load varies from 10N to 30N at constant sliding distance 3000m. A comparative study was done between A356 alloy, A356-5%TiB2 in-situ composite and Semisolid processed alloy, composite it was found that semisolid processed alloy and composite shows more wear than commercial alloy and in-situ composite.