The effect on composition of peat soil as reinforcement on AA6061 aluminium chip to hardness and physical properties of metal matrix composite

The reinforcement materials on aluminium metal matrix composites are commonly used in the industrial sector due to their light-weight, improved fracture toughness, superior strength-to-weight ratio, and improved mechanical properties. This study investigates the effect on composition of peat soil as reinforcement on AA6061 aluminium chip to hardness and physical properties of metal matrix composite. AA6061 aluminium chip reinforced with peat soil at various composition prepared by using cold compaction technique were investigated. Due to the lower operating cost and energy consumption compared to conventional recycling by casting, this method was applied to study the hardness and physical properties of metal matrix composite samples. As a result, the addition of composition of peat soil shows improvement in term hardness and physical properties for composite compared to unreinforced AA6061 aluminium chip. The hardness of AA6061 aluminium chip has enhanced with increasing the composition of peat soil from 45.2826 Hv to 52.3120 Hv at an addition of 2.5 wt.%. The highest hardness shows with an addition of peat soil at 10 wt.% at 65.1069 Hv, however the porosity results shows that the samples have higher pores due to the larger amount of composition added. The physical properties on density of metal matrix composites samples shows the increment up to 5 wt.% of peat soils, and then decreased at increasing mass fraction of peat soil. The addition of peat soil at 7.5 wt.% as reinforcement material shows the improvement of hardness with light-weight on metal matrix composite samples.