A Study On Mechanical and Tribological Properties of Aluminium Alloy (7075) Reinforced with Nano Silicon Carbide and Fly Ash

A composite material is a combination of two or more chemically distinct and insoluble phases. Metals and ceramics, as well, can be embedded with particles or fibers, to improve their properties; these combinations are known as Metal-Matrix composites. Aluminum 7075 alloy constitutes a very important engineering material widely employed in the aircraft and aerospace industry for the manufacturing of different parts and components. It is due to its high strength to density ratio that it a sought after metal matrix composite. The present study deals with the behaviour of Al 7075 alloy based composites, reinforced with nano particulate Sic(particle size of 50 nm) and Fly Ash. The nano-particles can improve the base material in terms of wear resistance, damping properties and mechanical strength. To achieve this objective stir casting technique can be adopted and then studying its mechanical and tribological properties such as tensile strength, impact strength and wear behavior of produced test specimen. Experiment has been conducted by varying weight fraction of Fly Ash (2%,4% and 6%)while keeping SiC constant (0.1% and 0.2%). It was found that the tensile strength and hardness of Al alloy 7075 composites increases with the increase in %wt of Fly Ash upto certain limit. In addition of more amount of reinforcement the Tensile strength decreases due to poor wettability of the reinforcement material with metal aluminium matrix. The result shown that increase in addition of fly ash increases impact strength and wear resistance of the specimen and decreases the percentage of elongation.