ABSTRACT
Aluminium and its alloy found its application in aviation industries and power generating industries replacing iron and its alloys due to weight/volume values. However, when the question comes for surface properties such as wear and coefficient of friction, pure aluminium fails, as it is not very much wear resistant. Hence, an improvement of its tribological properties is necessary in practical applications, particularly when aluminium is being used as mating parts where rubbing or shearing is expected to occur. In this chapter, reinforced aluminium composite with three different percentages of ceramic reinforcement, i.e., silica gel, has been fabricated using the stir casting technique. Silica gel is chosen as its density and melting point are higher than those of pure aluminium. Higher density ensures that reinforcement, i.e., silica gel, would not occur when molten aluminium was mixed with the slag, and higher melting temperature ensures solid particles in molten aluminium. For tribological test, the fabricated Al metal matric composites are subjected to three different loads and sliding speeds and dry sliding condition on a pin-on-disc-type tribotester. Based on Taguchi's L27 orthogonal array, 27experiments were conducted, and optimum levels were calculated based on the signal-to-noise ratios. Moreover, analysis of variance was used to identify the salient factors affecting outputs. The data was analysed using Fuzzy Logic. Results of both were compared for ascertaining the authenticity of the proposed model.
