Characterisation of aluminium reinforced with graphite MMC’s

Abstract

The global technical market’s demand trend for high strength, high performance, better quality, reduced cost and reduced weight materials has led to an emerging development in research and utilization of composite materials over conventional monolithic materials in various industrial applications. Aluminium –graphite composite has been developed by stir casting technique. Al-Graphite composites having 2%, 4%, 6%, 8% of pure aluminium is prepared. Tensile strength, Hardness test, Impact strength as a function of graphite performs and metal matrices have been determined. The tribological properties were varied significantly with addition of solid lubricant-graphite. The hardness test of composites is carried on Brinell hardness Tester and tensile strength is measured using a Universal testing machine and Charpy and Izod tests are conducted to find the impact energy. Around 15% increase is observed in the hardness of the composite compared to the hardness of pure aluminium and no significant increase is found in the impact energy of the composite, but more than 21% increase is found in the tensile strength of the composite.