Preliminary Evaluations on Development of Recycled Porcelain Reinforced LM-26/Al-Si10Cu3Mg1 Alloy for Piston Materials

The current work deals with an endeavor to synthesis, metal composites by taking aluminum alloy (i.e. LM 26) as matrix material and porcelain (powder form) as reinforcement. The metal composites were fabricated with different weight percentages (0wt%, 2wt%, 4wt%, 6wt% and 8wt%) of recycled porcelain reinforced LM 26 aluminum alloy by using high temperature vacuum casting induction furnace and the physical, mechanical and wear properties were measured. The micro hardness, compressive strength, tensile strength and flexural strength were increased with the increase in porcelain weight percentage. From the results obtained, it was found that 6wt.% porcelain reinforced composite exhibits maximum wear resistance as compared to other compositions of composites. Furthermore, the surface morphology of the worn out surfaces and cross-sectional microstructure of the fabricated composites were analyzed by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to understand the wear mechanism and microstructural changes, respectively by increasing the composition of porcelain (0-8wt.%) for the base composition of Aluminum LM-26 alloy. The obtained findings indicate that LM 26 aluminum alloy containing 6wt.% porcelain can be recommended for tribological use of this composite in manufacturing automobile spare parts including piston material.