Influence of friction stir process on the MIG cladded AA 6063 to study the wear performance

Aluminum metal significantly used in industries due to lower density and high strength-to-weight ratio. The surface properties of any structural component are important in terms of performance and life span. The application of aluminum alloy for surface components concerning when it comes to wear properties. The surface modification approaches used for improvement of the aluminum alloy surface. In this investigation surface modification approach cladding and friction stir process have been examined by erosion wear analysis. The AA 6063 and ER 4043 filler has been studied with different processing parameters of cladding process and friction stir process. The erosion rate for base material, cladding sample, and FSP are 1.266 x 10(-3) gm/min, 0.785 x 10(-3) gm/min, and 0.4 x 10(-3) gm/min respectively (average value from experimentation). The erosion wear for the cladding and friction stir process reduced by 37.99% and 68.01%. The reduction in the erosion wear can be relate with improvement in micro-hardness of the sample, which analyzed by micro-hardness test. The post processing of the cladding sample performed by FSP, which improved the erosion rate and micro-hardness respectively. The value of erosion rate 0.4962 x 10(-3) gm/min observed after post processing. The erosion wear reduced by 61.33% from the base material after post processing. The ANN model is also prepared for the prediction of erosion rate for cladding process. The structure of model was 3-3-3-1, where one input layer, two hidden layers and one output layer selected.