Development of an Aluminium-based Composite Reinforced with Various Concentrations of 600 Microns of Alumina Particulates for Engineering Applications

A popular and cost-effective method for creating and processing metal matrix composite materials is the stir casting process, which produces casting alloy-based composite components made of aluminium. This study entails the development of an aluminium matrix composite reinforced with alumina particles, with the Matrix being the Al6061 alloy and the reinforcement Al₂O₃ particles, with a particle size of 600 microns. The originality of this study is on the formation of the mixing ratio of the 600 microns in the composite development. The fabrication method was the stir casting technique to enable a homogeneous mixture for excellent mechanical properties of the varying composites with different reinforcement compositions, ranging from 5%-30% of the Al₂O₃ material. The study performed mechanical tests such as tensile, compressive, hardness, impact and microstructural analysis on the developed composites. At the end of the study, it was discovered that the properties of the Al 6061 alloy, when reinforced with the alumina particles, improved when various tests were carried out. The tensile strength increased significantly after reinforcement, reaching a maximum value of 33.9 MPa compared to the initial value of 12.16 MPa. For the Impact test, the specimen with the most negligible impact was the aluminium composite with 0% reinforcement and 100% Al6061 alloy with an impact value of 25.75 J/mm² and the maximum value of impact being with the composition of 30% reinforcement of Al₂O₃ and 70% of Al6061 with 43.67 J/mm² amount of impact. The composite value with the maximum hardness, i.e. 30% of Al₂O₃ and 70% of Al6061, has a hardness value of 34.66. The study also investigated the relationships between mechanical properties and the compositions of the reinforcements, revealing valuable insights into their interplay of the load, composition percentage, and time.