Investigation of Process Parameters on Dry Sliding Wear of Self-Lubricating Metal Matrix Composites

In recent years, conventional materials are rapidly replaced by advanced aluminium composites due to its lighter in weight and high-performance characteristics. These materials find vast applications in automotive components because of its excellent combination of properties such as high specific strength, high specific stiffness, better dimensional stability and enhanced wear characteristics. The present work is focused on hybrid composites manufactured by stir casting route where the A356 alloy is the matrix and SiC + Moringa Oleifera Ash (MOA) particles as reinforcements. The influence of Moringa Oleifera Ash (MOA) particles (self-lubricant) on the wear behaviour of the composites is studied. Fabricated composites are tested on a pin-on-disc test rig at dry sliding wear conditions to study the influencing input parameters such as load, sliding distance and composites. A356 Aluminium alloy is reinforced with 5% SiC as primary reinforcement, varying MOA particles with 1% and 3% as secondary reinforcement. The design of experiments (DOE) approach using Taguchi method was adopted to perform the experiments according to L9 orthogonal array and analyse the results. From Taguchi analysis, combination of best suited values is identified and reported. Inquest of influential wear test parameters and its effect on wear and friction is determined using the signal-to-noise ratio and analysis of variance (ANOVA).