A Comparative Study of AA6351 Mono-Composites Reinforced with Synthetic and Agro Waste Reinforcement

The use of industrial-agro wastes as reinforcements in the development of composites can be considered as a new inclination in the field of material research. The present investigation involves the development of AA6351 mono-composites with various weight percentages (2wt.%, 4wt.%, 6wt.% and 8wt.%) of silicon carbide (SiC) and rice husk ash (RHA) as reinforcement using stir casting technique. The physical, microstructural, mechanical and tribolological behaviour of the developed composites were examined for the both type of the composites. An increase of 1.08% in density, 37% in hardness and 39% in tensile strength was recorded for the composites developed with silicon carbide as reinforcement and a decrease in density of 3.9%, an improvement of 16% in hardness and 21% in tensile strength was indicated for the composites reinforced with rice husk ash as reinforcement. The results also revealed a uniform distribution of the reinforcement and improved wear resistance for the both set of the composites. The characterization results exhibited that even the performance of the composites with SiC as reinforcement is better than the performance of the composites with RHA as reinforcement but RHA can be suitably applied as reinforcement for the development of low density AA6351/RHA green composites.