Evaluation of Tribological and Mechanical Properties of Aluminium 2024 reinforced with Tungsten Carbide (WC) and Graphite

Aluminium alloy materials found to be the best alternative with its unique capacity of designing the materials to give required properties. Aluminium alloy Metal Matrix Composites (MMCs) are gaining wide spread acceptance for automobile such as engine cylinders and pistons, industrial, aerospace and it is also useful in defence applications like torpedoes, manufacture of missile bodies, because of their low density, high strength to weight ratio, high thermal conductivity and good structural rigidity. Poor wear resistance of the alloys is major limitation for their use. Which also exhibit poor tribological properties is the drawback of this material. Hence the desire in the engineering community to developed a new material with greater wear resistance and better tribological properties without much compromising on the strength to weight ratio which led to the development of metal matrix composites. The matrix aluminium 2024 alloy was melted in a furnace and stirred to form a vertex, Tungsten carbide (WC) particles and graphite particles were added as reinforcement material to the periphery of vertex and the composite melt was solidified in a permanent mould casting. And hardness test, Tensile test, Wear test and microstructure analysis are carried out.