EVALUATION OF MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF AL6063 ALLOY MMC REINFORCED WITH SIC AND COCONUT SHELL ASH

Abstract: Aluminium is most commonly used material in engineering due to its good mechanical properities like weight to strength ratio, ductility and thermal conductivity etc. The conventional aluminium cannot meet the requirements of the modern industry. These requirements can be fulfilled by producing AMCs. In the present study,conventional and economic technique of stir casting was used to produce aluminium matrix composite which involves stirring the filler in the molten metal. In this study, aluminium Al6063 was used as a matrix and fine particles of Silicon carbide(Sic) and coconut shell ash(CSA) as reinforcement. The stir casting method was used for producing AMCs due to simplicity. Stirring was carried out with the help of machine for 15 mins at stirring rate of 250 rpm. The stirring speed was kept constant throughout the process. To analyze the effect of weight percentage of the reinforcements, tensile test, impact test, hardness test and optical microscopy were performed. Results show that the impact test, tensile strength and hardness of reinforced matrix increased as compared to unreinforced matrix. The optical microscopy shows the proper mixing of Al6063,CSA and SiC into the matrix. Present work is focused on the study of the effect of reinforcement on Al based MMC with addition of Sic and CSA with weight percentage of 4%, 8%, 12% respectively using stir casting technique. Various tests such as optical microscopy, tensile strength test, hardness as well as impact test were performed to investigate the mechanical behavior of composite alloy.

Keywords: MMCs, NFRCs, Stir Casting.