Indian Journal of Science and Technology

Abstract

Background/Objective: Hardness of Al/TiB2 Metal Matrix Composites (MMCs) fabricated through in-situ reaction technique is indirectly dependent on pouring temperature. The objective is to predict Hardness through FEA and compare with experimental results. Methods/Statistical Analysis: The Al/TiB2 (MMCs) ingots are obtained by melting A356 Aluminium alloy and mixing calculated amounts of KBF4 and K2 TiF6 to yield a maximum of 6% TiB2 reinforcements and cast at different pouring temperature, while maintaining the time of stirring and holding time constant. The Brinell hardness of the resulting material is experimentally found and compared with predicated values by FEA in Ansys software package. Findings: The Hardness of the resulting Al/TiB2 MMCs fabricated increases with pouring temperature and also depends on the stirring time as the KBF4 and K2 TiF6 salts are mixed and holding time in the mixed condition. In this study the castings were obtained for different pouring temperatures, but the stirring and holding time kept constant. The fundamental concept of this study is that as the pouring temperature increased the formation of % TiB2 reinforcement increased there by resulting in increased hardness with pouring temperature. The tensile strengths of the samples with different pouring temperature are experimentally found and using this in FEA hardness is predicated. FEA predictions and experimentally found values are found to differ between 7.36% to 10.97% only. The novel finding is that it is possible to predict the hardness theoretically by FEA with a reasonable accuracy of over 90% instead of finding through laborious practical work. Applications/ Improvements: Whenever the Hardness of an Al/TiB2 MMCs is needed it is possible to predict the hardness using FEA-Ansys package if the tensile strength of the material is known. There is no need for laborious practical method to be followed.
Keywords: Al/TiB2, Brinell Hardness, Finite Element Analysis, In-situ