Application of Hybrid AHP-TOPSIS Technique in Analyzing Material Performance of Silicon Carbide Ceramic Particulate Reinforced AA2024 Alloy Composite

In this research work, the performance determining criteria's (PDC) measures like mechanical, tribological and thermo-mechanical etc. of AA2024-SiC alloy composite (i.e. ASC-0; ASC-2; ASC-4; ASC-6) are analysed using hybrid Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Technique for Order Preferences by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) technique (a Multi-Criteria-Decision-Making (MCDM) technique; computationally simple and easy to understand) in-order-to rank the composites formulations. The order of different PDCs as per AHP is: Coefficient-of-friction > Specific wear rate > Tensile strength ~ Cost > Hardness > Impact strength > Elongation ~ Flexural strength > Voids content ~ Actual density > Fracture toughness > Storage modulus > Thermal conductivity ~ Thermo-gravimetric analysis > Tan delta. The ranking order as per TOPSIS is: ASC-6 > ASC-4 > ASC-2 > ASC-0. The sensitivity analysis study reveals robust ranking-order or priority-order of PDCs as obtained by AHP analysis, when the weights changes from +/- 30%. The obtained results are in tune with the ranking of the formulations on subjective ground. This proves that MCDM techniques like Hybrid AHP-TOPSIS aids in taking skillful decision by ranking the formulations based on performance measures.