Optimization of Tensile Characteristics of Al 356 alloy reinforced with volume fraction of Red Mud Metal Matrix Composite

Abstract In order to achieve optimum values for tensile characteristics such as high strength, yield strength and percentage of elongation the artificial ageing treatment were applied. The red mud collected from MALCO, Mettur,TamilNadu, India, is preheated in the furnace up to 500 o C and 53 micron sized particles are mixed with Al356alloy. Al MMC specimens are manufactured by stir casting technique using Al356 alloy reinforced with different volume percentage (5%,10%, 15% and 20%) of red mud. The standard artificial ageing treatment for Al 356 alloy followed heat treatment and solution treatment for different temperature at varied time and temperature are carried out. The effect of solution treatment and artificial aging on the microstructure and tensile properties were studied by scanning electron microscopy and by carryout tensile test in the universal testing machine by applying constant load for all different volume percentage of red mud. The experimental results are optimized by using taguchi orthogonal array design method using Qulitek software, the experiments were conducted on three parameters with four levels, the three parameters are volume fraction, temperature and aging time. The influences of the various parameters are discussed, the validation of experiments is done by analysis of variance techniques the result shows that the ultimate strength can be obtained for 180–200°C and 4-6 hrs of 20% of volume fraction, The experimental results also show with the increase in time and temperature the ultimate strength also increases, the yield strength also found to be increases with the increase in temperature and time but the yield strength increase and decreases with the increase percentage of elongation. The percentage of elongation increases with the increase in temperature.