INVESTIGATION OF THE SURFACE QUALITY OF AA6082-ZrO2-Gr MMCs USING ABRASIVE WATERJET MACHINING

Abstract

Aluminium metal matrix composites have wide applications in the aerospace and automotive industries due to their excellent physical properties like hardness, tensile strength, etc. The reinforcement of ZrO2 hard ceramic particles and soft solid lubricant graphite on AA6082 produces a high-strength composite. This research aims to fabricate AA6082-ZrO2-Gr MMCs with different compositions and evaluate the abrasive-waterjet-machining (AWJM) parameters in the machining of the fabricated composites, which eliminates the thermal distortion and damage to the work material. The experiments were conducted by varying the dominant process parameters such as water pressure, traverse speed, abrasive flow rate and mesh size. The kerf taper angle was affected by the traverse speed and water pressure, while the surface roughness was affected by the abrasive flow rate, mesh size and water pressure. The abrasive mesh size of 120 provided the best surface finish.