CHARACTERIZATION OF MMC's DEVELOPED USING DIFFERENT MOLDING MATERIAL

Abstract

Metal Matrix Composites (MMCs) constitute an important class of design and weight-efficient structural materials that are encouraging every sphere of engineering applications. In the present work lOwt% SIC particulate reinforced A16063 matrix composite have been fabricated using two types of molding material like metallic mold and green sand mold through stir casting process. The Mechanical properties like tensile strength, impact strength, microstructure and hardness test conducted on both the samples taken from casted composites using two molding materials has been presented briefly. The tensile test conducted, results are plotted and it is concluded that the MMC obtained using metallic mold has better tensile strength. Microstructure of the resulting composites was studied by using metallographic testing, the results demonstrated that the distribution of reinforcement particles is reasonably uniform in metallic mold composite. When compared with sand mold composite. However, some porosities are observed in few areas due to the absorption of hydrogen gas during mechanical stirring and lack of lk wettability of the reinforcement particles. The impact strength of composite obtained using metallic mold shows a good strength than in composite from sand mold. Microhardness test results revealed, that the hardness in MMC obtained from metallic mold has slightly higher than in MMC obtained from green sand mold.