ABRASIVE WEAR BEHAVIOUR OF SiCp-REINFORCED Al2124 ALLOY COMPOSITE BASED ON THE TAGUCHI METHOD

Abstract

Al2124 alloy composites containing 10 wt.% SiCp and 15 wt.%Ti powders are prepared by powder metallurgy (PM) method and sintered at 630 degrees C for 3 h, followed by ageing at 250 degrees C for 3 h. Abrasive wear behaviour of MMCs is investigated in a pin-on-disc type of configuration to find out effects of operating variables such as abrasive size, load, sliding distance and materials type on the aged material in terms of the Taguchi approach. A L9 orthogonal array and analysis of variance are also employed to investigate which design parameters significantly affect the wear behaviour of composites. Macro-hardness both of heat-treated sample and unheated samples increase significantly with introduction of both particles. On air quenching and ageing for 3 h, Al2124 alloy exhibits a maximum improvement in hardness of around 44.7%, but Al2124+15Ti alloy, Al2124+15Ti+10 SiCp reinforced composites indicate a maximum improvement in hardness of around 20 and 6.09%, respectively. The wear results reveal that the abrasive size exerts the greatest effect on the weight loss, followed by the hardness when tested at heat treated samples.