Investigation on wear behaviour of AL6061 amalgam reinforced with carbides

The light metal industry is mainly dependant on aluminium and its alloys, for consumption in engineering applications, the demand is vastly increasing in transportation sector, which is witnessing faster expansion rates in recent years. Aluminium alloys exhibit resistance towards wear which is lesser as compared to ferrous metals. The strength of aluminium lies in its low density, in our endeavour towards increasing the defense of aluminium alloy towards aggressive environments, we have chosen AL6061 alloy and it is reinforced with Tungsten Cobalt Chromium, in the order of 2.5% (wt%) to 7.5% in an incremental order of 2.5% in proportion. The method chosen for reinforcement is Liquid metallurgy route, and the hybrid alloy after casting, is subjected to machining, to standard size of testing specimen. The testing standard chosen is ASTM G76. The results of the three-body abrasion studies depict that, the amalgam has demonstrated improved defence over aggressive environments, in relation to its standard AL6061 counterpart. In our study, it is noticed that, the incremental proportion 2.5% (wt%), has shown an appreciable resistance to wear, further 5 % (wt%) also exhibited good resistance, but the highest increment 7.5% (wt%) has shown an excellent improvement, with respect to wear resistance offered by the amalgam.