Achieving Enhanced Mechanical Properties and Analysis of Chemical Kinetics of the In Situ Reaction in an Al-TiB2 In Situ Composite

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to prepare an in-situ composite of 6061 TiB2 particles using vortex method and study the chemical kinetics of the ongoing in-situ reaction by X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique. In addition, it is characterized for its mechanical and wear properties. XRD studies indicated that the reinforcement was formed only at the later stages after a prolonged stirring. The tensile strength of the composite was found to enhance by 57.58% at 6% TiB2, while hardness by 47.3% at 12 % TiB2. The composites showed decreasing volume loss with increasing TiB2 content with all the composites exhibiting lower volume loss compared to that of the base alloy. On the other hand, the volumetric wear showed a decreasing trend with increasing volume fraction of reinforcement and the sliding distance. These results are explained using scanning electron microscopy, which showed more debris on the wear track of the composite having lower amount of TiB2, while with increasing TiB2 reinforcement, the composite showed more even wear track with lower amount of debris.