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Heat-treatment; Al/SiO& #8322; nanocomposite; wear; hardness; compressive behavior.

The aim of this paper is to present experimental results of tribological and compression properties of aluminum nanocomposites after T6 heat treatment. This heat treatment contained three stages: solutionizing at 500°C for 5 h, quenching in water, and ageing 180°C for 9 h. The method of nanocomposite production was the stir casting process. The SiO₂ nanoparticles in 0.5 and 1% wt were added to the aluminum melt as the reinforcement agent. The microstructural evaluation was conducted by the optical microscopy (OM) and the field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) methods. The results of the wear test revealed that the specific wear rate of specimens comprising SiO₂ nanoparticles was lower than that of specimens without nanoparticles. Thus, the formation of the holes, wear debris and cracks decreased obviously for nanocomposite surfaces during wear testing. Moreover, the wear rate reduced obviously for nanocomposites fabricated by thepre-heating process compared to others. It was noticeable that the ball-milling process was an effective method to decrease the friction coefficient value to 0.15 for nanocomposites. Such observations were due to higher hardness and lower micro-porosity content. The elastic modulus for various nanocomposites improved by 8–19% compared to the aluminum alloy. In addition, when the content of SiO₂nanoparticles increased from 0.5 to 1% wt, the ultimate compressive strength decreased about 11–13% due to the presence of more microporosities.

MAHBOOBEH AZADI¹ SAEID REZANEZHAD² MEHRDAD ZOLFAGHARI² MOHAMMAD AZADI²

1. Faculty of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering, Semnan University, P.O. Box: 3513119111, Semnan, Iran
2. Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Semnan University, P.O. Box: 3513119111, Semnan, Iran

Published

January 2020

Manuscript received

5 July 2019

Manuscript revised

14 November 2019

Accepted

25 November 2019

Final version published online

24 January 2020