Experimental Investigations on Microstructure, Properties and Workability Behavior of Zinc Oxide Reinforced Al-Si-Mg Matrix Composites

Al-Si based alloy matrix composites are now broadly utilized by the industrial sectors like automobile, structural, aerospace and more practical industrial applications due to its noncompetitive economy range, good mechanical properties and less density. In order to widen its applications, it is very significant to improve its mechanical and workability behavior. So, in this work, an effort has been taken to develop a ZnO microparticles (3, 4.5 & 6 %) reinforced with Al-Si-Mg (AA6061) alloy by stir casting route.Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray diffraction analysis (X-RD) were employed for characterization studies of the composites. Tensile and hardness of the composites are investigated, compared and analyzed its effects. Another novel finding of the work is determining the workability behavior of the prepared samples with aspect ratio of 1 by incremental compressive loading of 25 kN through cold upsetting technique. For all developed samples, true axial stress (sigma(z)), hoop stress (sigma), hydrostatic stress (sigma(m)), effective stress (sigma(eff)), formability stress index (beta) and stress ratio parameters [(sigma(z)/sigma(eff)), (sigma/sigma(eff)), (sigma(m)/sigma(eff))] were determined and the results are correlated with the axial strain (epsilon(z)). The results clearly infers that increasing weight contributions of ZnO particles increase the mechanical properties, all the stresses and stress ratio parameters of the composites.

Automated summary

The study focuses on developing Al-Si-Mg alloy composites reinforced with ZnO microparticles, characterizing them using SEM, EDS, and X-RD, analyzing their mechanical properties and workability behavior. The results show that the addition of ZnO particles can enhance the mechanical properties of the composites.