Investigation on the Mechanical Behaviour of Aluminium Alloy 356 – Zirconium Silicate Metal Matrix Composites (AA356-ZrSiO4 MMCs)

Due to the advancement in the material technology to produce desired materials for various industrial applications and fast changing scenario in the production of lighter and stronger materials, composite materials are gaining wide acceptance because of their unusual characteristics of behaviour with their high strength to weight ratios. The most widely used material in the current industrial sectors is aluminium and its alloys because of their light weight. To make use of the advantages of the alloys of aluminium for further versatile and flexible varieties of application, such materials are expected to behave as highly resistant to the various loading conditions for a long duration under different environments. Aluminium Alloy 356 has been chosen for the proposed study. AA356 alloy material has been mixed with Zirconium Silicate particles (ZiSO 4 ) with different fractions like 0 wt%, 3 wt%, 5 wt% and 8 wt%. The test samples have been prepared by means of stir casting process. SEM images have been taken on the ZrSiO 4 particles for noting down the size and shape of the particles. Three specimens for each composition have been prepared with ASTM standards in order to carry out the tensile test, compression test and hardness test. The tensile test results revealed that AA356 + 5 wt% of ZrSiO 4 composition yielded better tensile strength value (169.29 MPa) than the other three compositions. The micro images taken on the fractured samples of the tensile test specimens have been analyzed. It has also been noted that adding ZrSiO 4 particles beyond 5 wt% decreased the tensile strength of the proposed composite material. Similarly compression strength and hardness values also have been noted as better upto 5 wt% inclusion of ZrSiO 4 particles.