An Overview of the Mechanical and Tribological Characteristics of Non - Ferrous Metal Matrix Composites for Advanced Engineering Applications

The ever increasing service requirement of industries like automobile, aerospace, marine, infrastructure and transportation have evolved non-ferrous metal matrix composites with different combinations of ceramic and soft reinforcements which have resulted in the improvement of their tribo-mechanical properties as compared to an unreinforced alloy. Secondary reinforcements provide safe disposal of agro-industrial waste thereby reducing environmental degradation. The scanning electron micrographs reveals fairly uniform dispersal of reinforcement in metal matrix if proper conditions are maintained and porosity levels are found to be in acceptable range. The density, hardness, wear resistance, tensile strength, fatigue strength and impact strength of non-ferrous composites have been found to be either comparable or superior to an unreinforced alloy with minimum weight and cost. The purpose of current study is to explore the nonferrous composites and propose their application area based on material properties. An attempt has been made for indepth review on the effect of controllable process parameters on tribo-mechanical properties of the non-ferrous composites. The study concludes that non- ferrous composites with single or more than one reinforcement have superior tribo-mechanical characteristics making them suitable for design of high performance, low cost and low weight to strength ratio components.