Optimization of mechanical, tribological and machining parameters of aluminium MMC’s LM6 and ADC 12 J. Arun Prakash ⇑ , P. Shanmughasundaram, P.S. Sreelakshmy Department of Mechanical Engineering, Karpagam Academy of Higher Education, Coimbatore, India article info Article history: Received 26 June 2020 Received in revised form 16 July 2020 Accepted 21 July 2020 Available online xxxx Keywords: Aluminium composite ADC12 Hardness Tensile strength Wear properties Taguchi abstract Studying the usage trends of Aluminium Matrix composite in automobile and aerospace industries, it is evident that Al based composites have been gaining popularity among the other composites from the past few decades because of its high strength and light weight properties. In this study ADC12 and LM6 are the two aluminium based matrixes used. Along with Iron oxide with a weight percentage of 5 and 10 are added respectively as the reinforcement. This material is fabricated using stir casting method. The materials are subjected to various heat treatment process which includes hardening, annealing and normalizing. Hardness, tensile and wear properties of these material composition are tested. The machin- ing properties like cutting force and surface roughness are also been studied. The optimization studies is carried out using Taguchi and ANOVA method. The software used for the optimization analysis is Minitab. Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Confer- ence on Newer Trends and Innovation in Mechanical Engineering: Materials Science. 1. Introduction Aluminium based composite materials has been used for vari- ous application, Hence different methods are adopted to increase its mechanical strength. Comparing the Aluminium Alloys, Al – Si alloys are having good corrosion resistance, bearing properties, low thermal expansion coefficient and high strength. Because of this advantages Al-Si alloy gaining popularity among the mechan- ical, automobile and aerospace industries [1–4]. In this study ADC12 and LM6 are the Aluminium matrix composites taken for analysis. In LM6, the main disadvantage is that it exhibits low tri- bological properties. By changing the composition and by making the material to undergo various heat treatment process, it is possi- ble to increase the material wear properties along with that there will an increase in its tribological properties [5–8]. Stir casting is used for the fabrication of materials. This casting process comparably economical, simple, flexible and its applicable for large amount of production. The material, ADC12 and LM6 are subjected to various types of Heat treatment process which includes hardening, annealing and normalizing [9,10]. The heat treatment will allow the material to improve its durability and per- formance parameters. Iron oxide has been reinforced with the Alu- minium Matrix composites with a weight percentage of 5% and 10%, which will help to increase its wear resistance and lower the surface roughness values The method used for optimization is Taguchi and ANOVA (Anal- ysis of Variance) methods. The impact of change in composition and various heat treatment process has been discussed. Based on observation optimization is carried out using Taguchi orthogonal array (L9). It is an experimental approach for the analysis of com- plicated design. Minitab is the software used for optimization stud- ies [11–13] 2. Materials and methods 2.1. Selection of materials In this study stir casting is the method used for the fabrication of the composite Aluminium Metal Matrix composites. ADC12 and LM6 has been used as matrix material. Iron oxide of varying com- position has been used as a reinforcement on this composite mate- rial. The weight composition used on this study are 5% and 10% respectively. Along with this each material has been undergone various heat treatment process. Hardening, annealing and normal- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.07.494 2214-7853/Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Conference on Newer Trends and Innovation in Mechanical Engineering: Materials Science. ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: arun.j@kahedu.edu.in (J.A. Prakash), Shanmughasundaram. p@kahedu.edu.in (P. Shanmughasundaram), sreelakshmy.p.s@kahedu.edu.in (P.S. Sreelakshmy). Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Materials Today: Proceedings journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matpr Please cite this article as: J. A. Prakash, P. Shanmughasundaram and P. S. Sreelakshmy, Optimization of mechanical, tribological and machining parameters of aluminium MMC’s LM6 and ADC 12, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.07.494