Optimization of erosion wears of Al–Mg–Si–Cu–SiC composite produced by the PM method

Metal matrix composites are expanding their range every day due to their various industrial applications in manufacturing sectors, to attain high performance and favorable characteristics such as light weight, more excellent corrosion as well as wear resistance, high specific strength and high temperature-resistance than conventional materials. This study deals with analysis on erosion wear characteristic and corrosion behavior of newly-engineered aluminum metal–matrix composite (Al–0.5Si–0.5Mg–2.5Cu–5SiC) developed by powder metallurgy method. Solid particle erosion test was conducted on the newly developed AMMC product and the execution of design of experiments through Taguchi and statistical techniques demonstrates the feasibility of investigating the erosion characterization and behaviors of the composites. Sixteen set of experimental trials were performed by considering three process parameters (impact angle, stand-off distance, and impact velocity) associated with four levels each. Experimental results in accordance of Taguchi’s orthogonal array design of experiments are analyzed by employing analysis of variance (ANOVA), response surface methodology (RSM) and desirability function approach for analysis, predictive modeling and optimization of erosion rate, respectively. Thereafter, an observation on eroded surface morphology is performed under the influence of impact velocity by employing scanning electron microscope (SEM) to entrench the process. Result shows that, the impact velocity followed by impact angle have significant contribution (80.42 and 8.71%, respectively) in improvement of erosion rate. The methodology proposed in this study collects the experimental results and builds a mathematical model in the domain of interest and optimized the process model. Under the highest desirability (1), desirability-function approach of RSM presented the optimal manufacturing conditions at impact velocity of 18 m/s, stand-off distance of 26 mm and impact angle of 67° with estimated erosion rate of 65.155 mg/kg. The experimental data generated for Al–0.5Si–0.5Mg–2.5Cu–5SiC AMMC will be useful for the industry.