1M-Tech Student, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India
2Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India
*Corresponding author e-mail: hameedur.rahmankhan@gmail.com
Online published on 15 September, 2014.
Mechanical alloying involves cold welding, fracturing, and rewelding of powder particles in a ball mill. This method allows production of homogeneous metal matrix composites (MMC) starting from elemental powder mixtures. An attempt is made to synthesize Al-Fe-Cr-Al2O3 composites through mechanical alloying with varying (10%-30%) weight percentages of aluminium oxide reinforcement. Powders of Al, Fe, Cr and Al2O3 having average particle size of 48μm, 150μm, 100μm and 100μm respectively with all having purity ≥ 99% are used. Ethanol (5 wt. %) has been used as a process control agent (PCA). Mechanical alloying is carried out in a conventional ball mill using stainless steel grinding medium at 115 rpm in the argon environment for 15h. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) shows the formation of a homogeneous phase for all compositions after milling time of 15 h. EDX is used to check the contamination of composites during their synthesis. Effect of varying percentages of alumina reinforcement is investigated on Al-Fe-Cr-Al2O3 composites. The diffraction patterns of X-Ray diffraction (XRD) reveal the influence of varying weight percentage of alumina. The data obtained shows 20 wt. % alumina yields the highest crystalline size refinement and also has the maximum lattice strain.
Metal matrix composites, grinding media, mechanical alloying, reinforcement, PCA
