Journal of Minerals and Materials Characterization and Engineering, 2012, 11, 1085-1094 Published Online November 2012 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/jmmce) Wear Behaviour of Al-SiCp Metal Matrix Composites and Optimization Using Taguchi Method and Grey Relational Analysis Shouvik Ghosh, * Prasanta Sahoo, Goutam Sutradhar Department of Mechanical Engineering, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India Email: * psjume@gmail.com Received July 25, 2012; revised August 28, 2012; accepted September 7, 2012 ABSTRACT Aluminium metal matrix composite is a relatively new material that has proved its position in automobile, aerospace and other engineering design applications due to its wear resistance and substantial hardness. Need for improved tri- bological performance has led to the design and selection of newer variants of the composite. The present investigation deals with the study of wear behaviour of Al-SiCp metal matrix composite for varying reinforcement content, applied load, sliding speed and time. Aluminium metal matrix composites reinforced with SiC particles are prepared by liquid metallurgy route using LM6 aluminium alloy and silicon carbide particles (size ~ 37 μm) by varying the weight fraction of SiC in the range of 5% - 10%. The material is synthesized by stir casting process in an electric melting furnace. The materials are then subjected to wear testing in a multitribotester using block on roller configuration. A plan of experi- ments based on L27 Taguchi orthogonal array is used to acquire the wear data in a controlled way. An analysis of vari- ance is employed to investigate the influence of four controlling parameters, viz., SiC content, normal load, sliding speed and sliding time on dry sliding wear of the composites. It is observed that SiC content, sliding speed and normal load significantly affect the dry sliding wear. The optimal combination of the four controlling parameters is also ob- tained for minimum wear. The microstructure study of worn surfaces indicates nature of wear to be mostly abrasive. Keywords: Metal Matrix Composite; Al-SiCp; Wear; Optimization; Grey-Taguchi 1. Introduction Metal Matrix Composites (MMC) synthesized by incor- porating hard ceramic particles like Silicon Carbide (SiC) into aluminium alloys achieve good mechanical proper- ties. These composites are both light weight and show good hardness property which qualifies it as structural material especially for wear resistant and weight critical applications. Such applications motivate researchers to study the wear behaviour of this category of metal matrix composites. The composites are synthesized by different techniques but mostly pressure infiltration technique [1], powder metallurgy [2-6] and stir casting techniques [7-9] are used. Researchers in general consider the volume fraction of reinforcement silicon carbide in the range of 0% - 30% [2-21]. Some researchers have used higher volume frac- tion in the range of 60% [1] and 10% - 40% [19,20]. The wear tests are conducted by varying applied load and sliding speed. Al-Rubaie et al. [2,3] studied the abra- sive wear behaviour of Al-SiC MMC by varying the volume fraction of SiC reinforcement in the range of 5% - 20% and particle size 10, 27 and 43 μm. Thus a varied range of abrasive study was conducted and the results showed that wear rates increase with increase in abrasive particle size but decreased with increase in volume frac- tion. Another abrasive wear test conducted by Ahlatci et al. [1] for varying particle size of Al 2 O 3 abrasive particle infers that with increase in particle size of Al 2 O 3 the wear rate increased. Thus the infiltration of SiC increases the abrasive wear resistance of the aluminium alloy. The effect of applied load on wear behaviour of Al- 5%SiC and Al-10%SiC was studied by Chen et al. [8]. The results suggested that with increase in volume frac- tion of reinforcement particle the wear rate increased but with gradual increase in applied load the wear rates de- creased. Chen et al. [9] considered the effect of heat treat- ment on the fretting wear behaviour of Al-SiC MMC syn- thesized by reinforcing 15 vol% SiC in A356 aluminium alloy and observed that heat treatment of the composite increases the hardness of the material thus increasing fret- ting wear resistance. Wear behaviour of Al-Mg-Cu alloy reinforced with SiC * Corresponding author. Copyright © 2012 SciRes. JMMCE