Citation

Rajaram, Srinivasan and Balaji, N. S. and Alwetaishi, Mamdooh and Krishnan, Shashikumar (2025) Experimental investigation of influence of age hardening temperature and cooling medium on tribological behaviour of aluminium/tungsten carbide metal matrix composite. Scientific Reports, 15 (1). ISSN 2045-2322

Text s41598-025-05805-4.pdf - Published Version Restricted to Repository staff only Download (3MB)

Abstract

This work investigates the hardness and wear resistance of an Aluminum/Tungsten carbide metal matrix composite in relation to its age-hardening temperature. The composite was fabricated by stir-casting technique, and samples were cooled in a furnace, water, and atmosphere after being aged for two hours at 0 °C, 250 °C, and 450 °C. The results showed that the composite aged at 250 °C under furnace cooling achieved a 50.48% increase in hardness compared to the non-aged composite, while those cooled under water and atmospheric conditions exhibited increases of 30.82% and 39.33%, respectively. In the investigation of the composite’s wear characteristics, two variables were considered: sliding distance (1000, 1500, and 2000 m) and load (10, 20, and 30 N). The composite aged at 250 °C demonstrated a significant increase in wear resistance, attributed to high volume of precipitates formed at the grain boundaries, which reduce dislocation movement and result in reduced wear compared to other aged composites cooled under water and atmospheric conditions. The Taguchi method was used for optimization to identify conditions that minimize wear rates across various cooling environments, which were then experimentally investigated. The results revealed that low wear observed in composite aged at 250 °C, regardless of the cooling medium. For furnace-cooled samples, aged at 250 °C with a 10 N load and a 1000 m sliding distance was optimal compared to the other cooling environments and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) observations indicated that adhesive wear is the primary wear mechanism, with severity influenced by load, sliding distance and aging temperature.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Tungsten carbide
Subjects:	T Technology > TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) > TA401-492 Materials of engineering and construction. Mechanics of materials
Divisions:	Faculty of Artificial Intelligence & Engineering (FAIE)
Depositing User:	Ms Rosnani Abd Wahab
Date Deposited:	29 Jul 2025 02:34
Last Modified:	31 Jul 2025 09:26
URII:	http://shdl.mmu.edu.my/id/eprint/14343

Downloads

Edit (login required)