A REVIEW OF WEAR CHARACTERIZATION AND FABRICATION OF ALUMINIUM MATRIX COMPOSITES

Abstract

Aluminium (Al) is second most abundant metallic element on earth. It has properties such as soft, ductile and resistant to corrosion a nd it has found wide applications in foil and conductor cables but in order to use aluminium for industrial applications, it is necessary to alloying aluminium with other elements to provide the elevated strength needed for other applications. Owing to very good characteristics shown by aluminium, it has a wide range of applications which make aluminium a very high in demand material. It is required to produce aluminium metal matrix composite and investigate various properties exhibited by these newly formed composites. The composites have shown a tendency to exhibit properties which are much better as compared to aluminium alloy. Aluminium metal matrix composites on comparison with base aluminium alloy have exhibited good combinations of mechanical and tribological properties. These have found wide applications in our daily life. There are some advantages in using particles reinforced aluminium metal matrix composites materials than unreinforced materials such as increased strength, enhanced stiffness, lowered
thermal expansion coefficient, light in weight, raised thermal conductivity and improved wear resistance. The usual reinforcements used in aluminium metal matrix composites are alumina (Al2O3), boron carbide (B4C), graphite etc