Effect of titanium carbide reinforcement on micro structure and wear properties of annealed AA6082 by friction stir processing

Friction stir processing (FSP) has evolved as a novel solid-state technique to fabricate AA6082 plates in recent years. FSP technique was applied to analyse Aluminium Matrix Composites (AMC) AA6082 by reinforcing 6%-12% titanium carbide particles in the annealed state. A single-pass FSP was carried out using a tool with 1200 rpm rotational speed, whose travel speed of 60 mm/min and an axial force of 10 kN to produce the composite. The effect of its volume fraction of ingredient particles on the microstructure was studied using a Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The results reveal that titanium carbide particles significantly influenced the grain size of the SEM images of the annealed AA6082 plates. The wear resistance shows improvement with an increase in weight per cent of titanium carbide particulates in the aluminium matrix.