Enhancement of Ultimate Tensile Strength and Hardness of Hybrid Metal Matrix Composite Using Taguchi’s Approach

Abstract

In literature, efforts have been focused to study the mechanical properties of hybrid metal matrix composites. Among the hybrid composites, aluminium-based hybrid composites are gaining wide range of acceptance in all the applications because of their unique property of high strength and low density. In this paper, the hybrid composite is prepared using aluminium as base metal and the reinforcements are silicon carbide and graphite. The preparation of this composite is done using stir casting technique to study its ultimate tensile strength along with the hardness. Heat treatment of the hybrid composite has been conducted to enhance the mechanical properties. The experimentation and analysis is made simpler by using Taguchi’s approach. Taguchi’s orthogonal array approach helps reduce the experimentation efforts and hence applied here. Taguchi’s Signal to noise ratio for larger and better values is calculated. This study has resulted in improved ultimate tensile strength and hardness for varying percentage of silicon carbide and graphite.