Experimental investigation and optimization for friction and wear behavior of aluminum LM 25/ h-BN /B4C composites via mixture design and desirability approach

This paper aims to investigate the friction and wear behavior of LM 25 Aluminum alloy reinforced with Hexagonal Boron Nitride (h-BN) and Boron Carbide (B 4 C) by using a mixture design and desirability approach. Ten different samples were prepared by the stir casting method with different compositions of base Alloy (LM 25) and h-BN and B 4 C reinforcements. Tests were performed on pin-on-disk equipment under dry sliding conditions and Wear and coefficient Friction of the samples have been analyzed. From microstructure analysis, it was clear that the mixing was done properly and reinforcements were uniformly distributed in the matrix phase. From wear analysis all the reinforced samples have less wear loss as compared with the base alloy. Out of all the samples, sample with compositions of h-BN with 2% and B 4 C of 6% have low wear loss. Also low coefficient of friction was found as 0.26850 for the composite sample with composition of h-BN with 6% and B 4 C of 2%. The optimal values with wear loss of 0.005 g and coefficient of friction of 0.282 were found with LM 25 of 92.368%, h-BN 5.188% and B 4 C of 2.444% with a desirability score of 0.989.