Fabrication and Machinability of Al Zn Based Metal Matrix Composite Reinforced with Bamboo Leaf Ash and Alumina

Abstract

Metal matrix composites, due to its attractive properties its popularity newlinewidened but at the expense of its economic value. This research work is newlinefocused on the aluminum base metal matrix composite fabricated by newlinereinforcing with agro-waste bamboo leaf ash (BLA) and alumina. Three newlinehybrid composites with differing amount of reinforcements contents of newlinealumina and bamboo leaf ash were successfully fabricated via stir casting newlineliquid metallurgy route after fabricating single reinforced aluminium metal newlinematrix composites (MMCs) reinforced with Al2O3 and BLA each respectively. newlineThe fabricated composites are: A713 + 4wt% Al2O3 (MMC1), A713 + newline4wt%BLA (MMC2), A713 + 2wt% Al2O3+ 2wt% BLA (HMMC1), A713 + newline4wt% Al2O3+ 2wt% BLA (HMMC2), A713 + 2wt% Al2O3+ 4wt% BLA newline(HMMC3). After the fabrication of the single reinforced composites, hybrid newlinereinforcement composites were developed. A713 aluminum alloy is used as newlinethe matrix and reinforcements used are Al2O3 and bamboo leaf ash. When newlinesingle reinforced composite using only Al2O3 was prepared, the stir casting newlinewith vortex method is satisfactory for getting well distributed reinforcements newlinein the matrix A713. However, while fabricating composite with only BLA as newlinethe reinforcement, vortex method couldn t be used. Hence, semi-solid stir newlinecasting method was adopted with adequate control of stirring time, stirring newlinespeed and melt temperature for developing composite using BLA newlinereinforcement. The hybrid composites are also prepared using the semi solid newlinestir casting method. After the fabrication of the composites, microstructures newlineof the composites were checked under optical microscope for observing the newlinedistribution of the reinforcements in the matrix. X-Ray diffraction was also newlineperformed for all the composites which displayed the presence of the expected newlinechemical composition for the reinforcements and the matrix alloy. newline