Analysis on Mechanical and Metallurgical Properties of A356 based Metal Matrix Hybrid Composites

Abstract

Hybrid composites are grabbing the attention of the researchers and becoming an area in which more research work is to be done. The Stir casting technique is mainly used because the mixing of the materials can be done effectively in liquid state than in solid state. This research discusses about the mechanical behavior of hybrid composite, aluminium A356 alloy reinforced with palm sprout shell ash, alumina powder, red mud and magnesium oxide. The reinforcements selected for the fabrication are of three different types. Alumina and magnesium oxide are of ceramic particles and palm sprout shells are converted in to ash, the third reinforcement is red mud which is a waste product from the industries. We have selected palm sprout shell ash and alumina as one reinforcement and red mud and MgO as other reinforcement. Red mud and palm sprout shell ash were sieved to 75μ and alumina and MgO are of fine mesh. The dissemination of reinforcement particles in the Al 356 matrix would revealed by microstructure observation. Castings were prepared without and with reinforcement (percentile range from 1% to 3% with increment of 1%).An investigation was made on the mechanical and metallurgical behaviour of the pure base metal (A356) was compared with two different hybrid composites.