Fabrication of AA6061/Al₂O₃ surface composite by double pass friction stir processing and investigation on mechanical and wear properties

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ABSTRACT

Friction Stir Processing (FSP) is known for its ability to produce the surface composite. FSP technique has been proved as a leading and efficient method to increase mechanical, microstructural, and tribological properties of the prepared composites. In this paper, FSP was employed to fabricate the surface composite on aluminium alloy AA6061 by using Al₂O₃ as the reinforcement particles. FSP with a single and a double number of passes were used to compare their influence on the microstructural, microhardness, and tribological characteristics of the prepared composites. Uniform distribution of reinforcement particles in AA6061 was observed in double pass FSP as compared to FSP with a single number of passes. Double pass AA6061/Al₂O₃ surface composite showed an increase in microhardness by 21.5% and coefficient of friction by 63.45%.

KEYWORDS:

• AA6061/al₂o₃
• friction stir processing
• microhardness
• surface composite
• wear

Acknowledgments

This research received financial assistance from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Nirma University under PhD budget sanctioned through budget no. E1A07A.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Declaration

Conflicts of interest/Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to report regarding this paper.

Authors’ contributions

Shalok Bharti: Conceptualisation, Methodology, Writing - Original draft preparation

Nilesh D. Ghetiya: Methodology, Supervision, Review and Editing

Kaushik M. Patel: Supervision

Additional information

Funding

This research received financial assistance from Nirma University under PhD budget sanctioned through budget no. [E1A07A.].