INTERNATIONAL Mechanical OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING 0976 International Journal of JOURNALEngineering and Technology (IJMET), ISSN AND 6340(Print), ISSN

N 0976 6359(Online) Volume 3, Issue(IJMET) TECHNOLOGY 2, May-August (2012), IAEME

ISSN 0976 6340 (Print) ISSN 0976 6359 (Online) Volume 3, Issue 2, May-August (2012), pp. 462-469 IAEME: www.iaeme.com/ijmet.html Journal Impact Factor (2012): 3.8071 (Calculated by GISI) www.jifactor.com

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SELECTION OF OPTIMUM PARAMETERS TO DEVELOP AN ALUMINIUM METAL MATRIX COMPOSITE WITH RESPECT TO MECHANICAL PROPERTIES BY USING
GREY RELATIONAL ANALYSIS
a,b

Vijaya Kumar Gurram a, Venkataramaiah pattib Department of Mechanical Engineering, S V University college of engineering, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India-517502. Correspondent author-a e-mail:vijayluther2003@yahoo.co.in, b e-mail:pvramaiah@gmail.com

ABSTRACT The present paper has focused on the development of aluminium metal matrix composites (AMMCs) which posses good mechanical properties to meet the functional requirements as the materials of machine elements. The AMMC are prepared by mixing reinforcement materials like SiC, Al2O3, Al3C4 in the form of particles with Aluminium base materials like Al6061, Al6063, Al7075 using stir casting furnace. The AMMCs samples are prepared at different combinations of influential factors such as reinforcement materials, size of reinforcement materials, percentage of reinforcement materials, and base materials according to taguchi orthogonal array OAL9 at minimum experimental cost. These samples are tested for mechanical properties (responses) such as tensile, impact, hardness strengths. These responses are studied and analyzed using grey relational analysis and the optimum combination of influential factors. The obtained results are conformed experimentally. Keywords: Metal Matrix Composite, Taguchi L9 experimental design, grey relational analysis, mechanical properties, optimum parameters. 1.0 INTRODUCTION Metal Matrix Composites (MMCs) possess higher stiffness and specific strength than that of conventional structural materials that are used in aerospace and automotive industries. MMCs generally consist of a light weight metal as matrix element, and the fibers, whiskers or particles as reinforcing element. Reinforcement helps in improving the
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International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology (IJMET), ISSN 0976 6340(Print), ISSN 0976 6359(Online) Volume 3, Issue 2, May-August (2012), IAEME

material properties which otherwise the metal alone doesnt have. The mechanical characteristics of the material can be altered by selecting the right matrix material, right reinforcement material as well as the quantity to be embedded into the matrix. Metal matrix composites show considerable improvement in stiffness, Hardness, and fatigue strength, etc. when compared to the matrix material. Apart from this, they also possess high creep strength even at elevated temperatures and adequate thermal fatigue resistance. The widely used metallic matrix are aluminium alloys, and reinforcements are SiC and Al2O3 [15]. A 7075 aluminum alloy matrix reinforced with 15 volume percent of SiCp were prepared by using liquid metallurgy method by Rupa and Meenia [16]. The properties comparisons were made with parent metal. They found the improvements in mechanical properties and sliding wear resistance in aluminum cast composite materials. But they did not investigate the effect of "Al2O3" particles reinforced with cast aluminum composites with the same material. Most of the previous work was done to reinforce SiCp in various aluminum matrix composites [17, 18, 19, 20]. Taguchi method analyzes the influence of parameter variation on response characteristics. Thereby, an optimal result can be obtained from the sensitivity analysis respect to parameter variation [1, 2]. Several researchers have successfully applied this method for analyzing the drilling of metals, composites and metal matrix materials [3-5]. However, Taguchi method has shown some defects in dealing with the problems of multiple performance characteristics [6-9]. The grey system theory proposed by Deng [10] has been proven to be useful for dealing with poor, insufficient, and uncertain information. The grey relational theory is more useful for solving the complicated inter-relationships among multiple performance characteristics [11, 12] like Multi response optimization in drilling parameters of Al/SiC metal matrix composite, and determination of optimum parameters [13, 14]. The literature reveals that the effect of the reinforcement of aluminium carbide is not investigated by the above researchers, and the Taguchi and grey relational analysis methods are not adopted in investigating the mechanical properties of the MMC. Hence there is a need of combine study about the reinforcement of aluminum carbide, alluminium oxide and silicon carbide with respect to the mechanical properties of AMMC.The present work has focused on the preparation of AMM and study on the influence of reinforcement with reference to the mechanical properties using grey relational analysis Table 1. Influential factors and their levels
Sl no 1 2 3 4 Influential factors Base material (BM) Reinforcement material (RM) Size of Reinforcement particles(m)- (SRP) Percentage of Reinforcement material (PRP) Level 1 Al 6061 SIC 53 5 Level2 Al 6063 Al2O3 63 10 Level3 Al 7075 Al4C3 75 15

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International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology (IJMET), ISSN 0976 6340(Print), ISSN 0976 6359(Online) Volume 3, Issue 2, May-August (2012), IAEME

Table 2. Experimental design and corresponding results

Expt. Runs (Samples no) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN RM BM 6061 6061 6061 6063 6063 6063 7075 7075 7075 SiC Al2O3 Al4C3 SiC Al2O3 Al4C3 SiC Al2O3 Al4C3 SRP (m) 75 63 53 63 53 75 53 75 63 PRP 5 10 15 15 5 10 10 15 5 CORRESPONDING RESULTS Tensile Impact Hardness Density strength Strength (BHN) (Kg/m3) 2 2 (N/mm (MN/m ) 80.84 307.63 133 2727.27 88.11 615.73 105 2786.4 94.21 186.55 150 2816.9 60.73 594.72 105 3097.3 66.52 184.62 95 2742.4 70.23 435.14 197.3 2855.1 58.34 632.9 229.5 3132.3 63.88 321.64 171 3007.5 67.47 589.65 171 2828.3

2. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN AND TESTING OF METAL MATRIX COMPOSITE SAMPLES The factors which influence the mechanical properties of AMMC, and their levels are considered based on literature as shown in Table 1. In the present work, in the view of minimizing the experimental cost, Taguchi L9 experimental design OAL9 is chosen for conducting experiments and nine different AMMCs have been prepared using stir casting furnace and test specimens are prepared for testing density, tensile, impact, and hardness properties and results are recorded (Table.2). 3. GREY RELATIONAL ANALYSIS FOR IDENTIFICATION OF OPTIMUM PARAMETERS The results obtained from testing are analyzed to identify the optimum parameters combination using Grey Relational Analysis as follows. 3.1 Step-I: Calculation of S/N ratios: S/N ratios for the corresponding responses (Mechanical Properties) are calculated for different cases according to the required quality characteristics as follows. i). Larger - the better / = 10 --------Equation (1)

ii) Smaller - the better / = 10 -------- Equation (2) = Observed response value where i=1, 2 ...n; j=1,

Where n=number of replications, 2...k

Larger the better is applied for problem where maximization of the quality characteristic is sought and smaller the better is applied where minimization of quality characteristic is sought. In the present problem, smaller the better is applicable for density and larger the better is applicable for other responses. Hence, its S/N ratios are calculated using Eq1& Eq2 as shown in the Table3.
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International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology (IJMET), ISSN 0976 6340(Print), ISSN 0976 6359(Online) Volume 3, Issue 2, May-August (2012), IAEME

3.2 Step II: Normalization of S/N ratios: Data pre-processing is required where the range and unit in one data sequence may differ from the others. In data pre-processing, the original sequence is transformed to a comparable sequence. Depending on the quality characteristic of a data sequence, there are various methodologies of data pre-processing available for the grey relational analysis. For quality characteristic of the larger the - better, the original sequence can be normalized as

(k) =

-------Equation (3)

For the smaller the - better is a characteristic of the original sequence, then the original sequence can be normalized as

(k) =

-----Equation (4)

Where i = 1, m; k = 1, n. m is the number of experimental data items and n is the number of parameters. (k) Denotes the original sequence, (k) the sequence after the (k) the largest value of (k), min (k) the smallest value data pre-processing, max of (k), and is the desired value. In this problem smaller the better and larger the better are applicable and its S/N ratios are pre processed using Eq3&Eq.4 as shown in Table 3. Table 3. S/N Ratios and Normalized S/N Ratios for Experimental Results
Expt. Runs 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Tensile strength 53.7156 54.4635 55.045 51.2311 52.0221 52.4935 50.8824 51.6703 52.1452 S/N Ratios Impact Hardness strength 49.7606 55.7878 45.4159 55.4863 45.3256 52.7726 56.0267 50.1474 55.4119 42.477 40.4238 43.5218 40.4238 39.5545 45.9025 47.2157 44.6599 44.6599 Density -68.7146 -68.9009 -68.9954 -69.8197 -68.7626 -69.1124 -69.9173 -69.5641 -69.0305 Tensile strength 0.3194 0.1397 0 0.9162 0.7262 0.613 1 0.8107 0.6966 Normalized S/N Ratios Impact Hardness Density strength 0.5856 0.0223 0.9916 0.0505 1 0.3041 0 0.5494 0.0575 0.6185 0.8865 0.4821 0.8865 1 0.1714 0 0.3336 0.3336 0 0.1549 0.2335 0.9188 0.04 0.3308 1 0.7064 0.2627

3.3 stepIII: Determine the grey relational coefficient: In grey relational analysis, the measure of the relevancy between two systems or two sequences is defined as the grey relational grade. After data pre-processing, the grey relation coefficient (k) for the k th performance characteristics in the i th experiment can be determined using the Eq.5 (k) =

-----Equation (5)

Where, sequence.

is the deviation sequence of the reference sequence and the comparability

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International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology (IJMET), ISSN 0976 6340(Print), ISSN 0976 6359(Online) Volume 3, Issue 2, May August (2012), IAEME May-August

= = =

(k)

(k) (k) (k)

(k) denotes the reference sequence and ) (k) denotes the comparability sequence. is ) distinguishing or identification coefficient and its value is between 0 and 1. The value may be adjusted based on the actual system requirements. A value of is the smaller and the distinguished ability is the larger. = 0.5 is generally used. The values of grey relational coefficient are shown in the Table.4 ficient 3.4 Step IV: Grey Relational Grade: After the grey relational coefficient is obtained, it is elational usual to take the average value of the grey relational coefficients as the grey relational grade. The grey relational grade is determined using the equation.6 However, in a real engineering system, the importance of various factors to the system varies. In the real he condition of unequal weight being carried by the various factors, the grey relational grade in Eq. 6 was extended and defined as Eq.7. = ------Equation(6) ------

= (k) =1 ------Equation (7) -----Where wk denotes the normalized weight of factor k. Given the same weight, Eqs. 6 and . 7 are equal.the grey relational grade values are shown in the Table.4 Table 4. Grey Relation Coefficients and Grey relational grade
Expt. Runs 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Tensile strength 0.4235 0.3676 0.3333 0.8565 0.6462 0.5637 1 0.7254 0.6224 Impact strength 0.5468 0.3384 0.9834 0.344 1 0.4181 0.3333 0.526 0.3466 Hardness 0.5672 0.815 0.4912 0.815 1 0.3763 0.3333 0.4287 0.4287 Density 0.3333 0.3717 0.3948 0.8604 0.3425 0.4276 1 0.63 0.4041 Grey relational Grade 0.4677 0.4732 0.5507 0.7192 0.7472 0.4464 0.6667 0.5775 0.4504

Figure 1 Means of gray relational grade 1.

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International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology (IJMET), ISSN 0976 6340(Print), ISSN 0976 6359(Online) Volume 3, Issue 2, May-August (2012), IAEME

Table 5 grey relational grade for each level of influential factor

Influential factors Base material (BM) Reinforcement material (RM) Size of Reinforcement particles(m)- (SRP) Percentage of Reinforcement material (PRP) Level 1 0.497200 0.617867 0.497200 0.555100 level 2 0.637600 0.599300 0.547600 0.528767 level 3 0.564867 0.482500 0.654867 0.615800 max-min 0.140400 0.135367 0.157667 0.087033 rank 2 3 1 4

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS After determining grey relational grade (Table.4.), the effect of each parameter is separated based on grey relational grade at different levels. The mean values of grey relational grade for each level of the controllable parameters and the effect of parameter on multi responses in rank wise are summarized in Table 8. Basically, larger grey relational grade means it is close to the product quality. Thus, a higher value of the Grey relational grade is desirable. From the Table 5, and Figure1 the parameters with the best level are base material at level 2 (i.e. Al6063), reinforcement material level 1 (i.e. SiC), size of reinforcement material at level 3 (i.e. 75 m), and percentage of reinforcement material at level 3 (i.e. 15%). The optimal level for the controllable parameters obtained from this methodology is verified. The experiments are conducted for initial and optimal conditions of controllable parameters and responses are recorded as in Table 6.

Table 6 comparison between initial and optimal combination

Combination of Controllable Parameters Initial Combination Optimal Combination Gain % of Gain BM2RM2SRP2PRP2 BM2RM1SRP3PRP3 N/A N/A Tensile strength (N/MM2) 65 110 45 49.5 Density Kg/m2 2816.9 2701.2 115.7 4.3 Impact strength MN/m2 450 650 200 44 Hardness (BHN) 175 250 75 42 Grey Relational Grade 0.613599 0.826466 0.212867 34.679

5. CONCLUSIONS From the results it is concluded that the Size of reinforcement material and type of the base material highly influence the mechanical properties of metal matrix composites. Reinforcement material and percentage of reinforcement material have low influence on the mechanical properties. It is also concluded that silicon carbide is the best reinforcement material of metal matrix composites among silicon carbide, aluminum oxide, alluminium carbide. This work may be extended by considering the other sizes of reinforcement material and percentages in the view of searching better properties of AMMC.

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6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors would like to acknowledge Mr.Murali, technician of mechanical engineering department, SVUCE, Tirupati, for his help in conducting the experiments. 7. REFERENCES [1]P.J. Ross, (1998) Taguchi techniques for quality engineering, Mc Graw-Hill, New York. [2]R.K. Roy,( 2001) Design of experiments using the Taguchi approach, John Willey & Sons, Inc., New York. [3]M.H. Caleb Li, S.M. Hong, (2005) Optimal parameter design for chip-on-film technology using the Taguchi method, International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology 25-118-129. [4]M.D. Jean, Y.F. Tzeng, (2004) Optimization of election-beam surface hardening of cast iron for high wear resistance using the Taguchi method, International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology 24 190-198. [5] S. Basavarajappa, et.al. ( 2 0 0 8 ) studies on drilling of hybrid metal matrix composites based on Taguchi techniques, journal of materials processing technology 1 9 6 332338 [6]B. Berginc,et.al, (2006), The use of the Taguchi approach to determine the influence of injection-moulding parameters on the properties of green parts, Journal of Achievements in Materials and Manufacturing Engineering 15-63-70. [7] C.C. Tsao a,_, H. Hocheng, (2004) Taguchi analysis of delamination associated with various drill bits in drilling of composite materials, International Journal of Machine Tools & Manufacture 44 10851090 [8] Eyup Bagci, Babur Ozcelik, (2005) Analysis of temperature changes on the twist drill under different drilling conditions based on Taguchi method during dry drilling of Al 7075-T651, Int J Adv Manuf Technol [9] Erol Kilickap, (2010) Modeling and optimization of burr height in drilling of Al-7075 using Taguchi method and response surface methodology, Int J Adv Manuf Technol 49:911923 [10] J.L.Deng, (1989) Introduction to Grey System, Journal of Grey Systems 1/1-1-24. [11]C.P. Fung, (2003) Manufacturing process optimization for wear property of fiberreinforced polybutylene terephthalate composite with grey relational analysis, Wear 254 298-306. [12]H.S. Lu,et.al (2006) Optimization of the micro-drilling process based on the grey relational analysis, Journal of the Chinese Society of Mechanical Engineerings 27 273278. [13] A. Noorul Haq, et.al, (2008) Multi response optimization of machining parameters of drilling Al/SiC metal matrix composite using grey relational analysis in the Taguchi method, Int J Adv Manuf Technol 37:250255

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[14] Nihat Tosun, (2006) Determination of optimum parameters for multi-performance characteristics in drilling by using grey relational analysis, Int J Adv Manuf Technol 28:450455 [15] Stefanos S.( 1996), "Mechanical Behaviour of Cast SiC Reinforced with Al 4.5% Cu-1.5% Mg Alloy", Journal of Materials Science and Engineering, Volume 210, pp. 7682. [16] Rupa, D.G., and Meenia, H.,( 2005) "SiC Particulate Distribution Dispersed Composites of An AL-Zn-Mg-Cu Alloy Property Comparison with Parent Alloy", Jounral of Materials Characterizations, Volume 54, pp. 438-445. [17] A.R.I. Khedera et.al. (2011) Strengthening of Aluminum by SiC, Al2O3 and MgO, Jordan Journal of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Volume 5, Number 6, ISSN 1995-6665 Pages 533 541,. [18] Yilmaz, and Buytoz,(2001) "Abrasive Wear of Al2O3 Reinforced Aluminum Based MMCs", Jounral of Composites Science and Technology, Volume 61, pp. 2381-2392. [19] Y. Sahina, V. Kilicli (2011)"Abrasive wear behaviour of SiCp/Al alloy composite in comparison with ausferritic ductile iron", Wear 271 2766 2774. [20] Nilrudra Mandal, et.al., (2011) "Mathematical Modeling of Wear Characteristics of 6061 Al-Alloy-SiCp Composite Using Response Surface Methodology", ASM International DOI: 10.1007/s 11665 - 011-9890-7 1059-9495.

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