Development of Aluminium Matrix Composites Reinforced with Carbonised Coconut Shell and Silicon Carbide Particle for the Production of Automobile Piston

In the present work, an effort has been made to develop a hybrid aluminium matrix composite for automobile piston production. Aluminium is widely used as a structural material especially in the aerospace industry because of its light weight, but its low strength and melting temperature however were always its big challenges. An easy method of solving this problem is the use of reinforcing elements such as SiO2, SiC particles and whiskers or other compounds. Al6061 alloy was selected as the matrix material while carbonized coconut shell particles (CCNSp) and silicon carbide particles (SiCp) as reinforcement. Composites were prepared using powder metallurgy technique with 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 wt % of reinforcement. The requisite mixtures were obtained using high energy mixer and loaded into a steel mould and compressed using a Compac hydraulic press of 500kN capacity to obtain the green compacts. The green compacts were carefully ejected and sintered in a muffle furnace at 527C for 1hour. Physical and mechanical properties were investigated. For green compacts, a range of 2.3478-2.4510g/cm and 7.041-11.230%, were obtained for density and porosity respectively while for sintered compacts, 2.34962.5173g/cm,5.045-9.118%, and 197.2-255.9MN/m were obtained for density, porosity and compressive strength respectively. Microstructural examination of the developed composite materials revealed that the reinforcement particles were uniformly distributed in the base matrix and that bonding took place between the base matrix and reinforcements on sintering. GSJ: Volume 7, Issue 8, August 2019 ISSN 2320-9186 1286