International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology (IJMET) Volume 8, Issue 5, May 2017, pp. 351–356, Article ID: IJMET_08_05_037 Available online at http://iaeme.com/Home/issue/IJMET?Volume=8&Issue=5 ISSN Print: 0976-6340 and ISSN Online: 0976-6359 © IAEME Publication Scopus Indexed SYNTHESIS AND CHARACTERIZATION OF ALUMINIUM-BAMBOO LEAF ASH METAL MATRIX COMPOSITE BY STIR CASTING TECHNIQUE Kammuluri.Baburaja, Dhayapulley Sai Chaitanya Kishore, Showri Ravi Teja Dasari, Venkata Sai Alusuri, Mahabub Jani Shaik, Avinash Lingineni, Raju Ravuri Department of Mechanical Engineering; K L University, Green Fields, Vaddeswaram, Guntur District, Andhra Pradesh, India. ABSTRACT This work is done using bamboo leaf ash, in this work the bamboo leafs are gathered and dried for a few days. This procedure is done until the moisture gets removed completely. After this the leaves are burnt and the ash is collected in a box. The ash is placed in the crucibles and heated again upto 700 degree centigrade. The ash is then mixed with graphite and K2TiF6. Totally five samples are made, that is 4 samples are taken by varying their weights of the BLA, Graphite, K2TiF6. The Sample 5 is the pure aluminium. The BLA is taken as 10, 20, 30 and 40 gm. The Aluminium is taken in a batch of 500 gm and BLA samples are added after preheating and stir casting is done. After the Fabrication the samples are collected and named as per the weight % of the added reinforcement. Their Mechanical properties are checked and compared with the sample 5 (i.e Pure Aluminium). And the properties such as Yield Strength and Ultimate Tensile Strength are higher than the aluminium, so this ABLA MMC with the improved strength can be replaced and used in the applications. Key words: Bamboo Leaf Ash, Metal Matrix Composite, stir casting, Al6061 Cite this Article: Kammuluri.Baburaja, Dhayapulley Sai Chaitanya Kishore, Showri Ravi Teja Dasari, Venkata Sai Alusuri, Mahabub Jani Shaik, Avinash Lingineni, Raju Ravuri, Synthesis and Characterization of Aluminium-Bamboo Leaf Ash Metal Matrix Composite By Stir Casting Technique. International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology, 8(5), 2017, pp. 351–356. http://iaeme.com/Home/issue/IJMET?Volume=8&Issue=5 1. INTRODUCTION Composites are the materials that are formed when two or more materials of different properties are combined together to form a new material of enriched properties. These http://iaeme.com/Home/journal/IJMET 351 [email protected] Synthesis and Characterization of Aluminium-Bamboo Leaf Ash Metal Matrix Composite By Stir Casting Technique composites have a typical nature that is they neither dissolve nor blend into each other. By this way we can easily identify the constituents of the composite. Their strength and stiffness is an added benefit along with the light weight. Here Matrix is the material which protects as the reinforcements and also serves to bind. Composites are divided into three based on structural, particle and Fibre-reinforced. They are further divided into two types under particle reinforced, that is large particle and Dispersion strengthened. Where as in structural there are Laminates and sandwich panels. All these composites are diversified based on the matrix material used. In this project the materials used are Aluminium AL6061 and Bamboo Leaf Ash. The Fabrication is done for the given below five samples. The 3 stages are: 1. Preparing ash from dried bamboo leaves. 2. Fabrication of aluminium with bamboo leaf ash in various proportion using stir casting method. 3. Determination of Mechanical Properties. Stage 1 is again divided into 4 Phases: 1. Dry the Bamboo leaves 2. Prepare ash from the dried bamboo leaves and pack it as a sample 3. Taking the crucibles and fill them with leaf ash and heat them at 600 degrees in muffle furnace for 3-4 hours 4. Sieve analysis and them packing them as samples. In stage 2, the fabrication is done using stir casting technique at Met Mech labs, Chennai. This casting has been done for the 5 samples and it has taken for about 6 hours. And the samples are numbered sequentially. Slag has been increased based on the percentage of the BLA. As Project work has been done in 3 Stages the slag increases the BLA percentage increases. During this process preheating is done to the samples and stirring is also done. In stage 3, the mechanical properties such as yield strength and ultimate tensile strength has been known using Universal Testing Machine (UTM). 1.1. Materials Selection In this project pure aluminium is used as a matrix material of 99% purity and the reinforcement material used was bamboo leaf ash prepared from the dried bamboo leaves brought from Thurakapalem, Muppalla, Guntur District. Bamboo leaf is selected because of its rich content of silica. Previously many experiments are conducted by using rice husk. 2. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE 2.1. Bamboo Leaf ash Preparation The dried bamboo leaves are taken and kept in an iron bowl and burn it and after every 2 mins put the remaining leaves and take a stick and adjust them, so that there won’t be any accidents of catching fire. This process is carried out until the entire leaves are completely burnt. Wait for 90 mins so that the ash will be cooled a little. The ash will be so hot that plastic will be condensed when they come into contact. So be careful while handling the ash. Don’t forget to stir the ash because at the bottom the fire will be burning so if we stir it, it will become cool. Finally pack it in a steel box to avoid any damages. 2.2.2. Sample Preparation http://iaeme.com/Home/journal/IJMET 352 [email protected] Kammuluri.Baburaja, Dhayapulley Sai Chaitanya Kishore, Showri Ravi Teja Dasari, Venkata Sai Alusuri, Mahabub Jani Shaik, Avinash Lingineni, Raju Ravuri Five Samples are prepared by changing the proportions of BLA, Graphite, K2TiF6 [9, 10]. Their variations are mentioned below in the tabular column. Table 1 The variations of samples in composition. SAMPLES BLA GRAPHITE K2TiF6 (gm) (gm) (gm) Sample – I 10 2.6 40.12 Sample – II 20 5.2 80.24 Sample- III 30 7.8 120.48 Sample -IV 40 10.4 160.96 Sample –V NIL NIL NIL The Samples are shown below Figure 1 BLA Figure 2 Aluminium to cast. The aluminium is shown above is mixed with the samples and casting is done to make ABLA MMC. Before doing the casting the aluminium is cut into small pieces and weighed 500 gm each and put into the crucible. The technique in which the aluminium is mixed with the bamboo leaf ash samples. This has got the name stir casting because after the metal is being melted, then preheating is done to the samples. After the preheating of the samples, it has been poured into the crucibles and then using stirrer the ash is mixed completely and slag is formed. The slag is removed using the steel spoon. After the removal of slag, the liquid metal is poured into the die. Allowed it to cool for 5 minutes and the die is removed using hammer. And the sample number is written on the sample. http://iaeme.com/Home/journal/IJMET 353 [email protected] Synthesis and Characterization of Aluminium-Bamboo Leaf Ash Metal Matrix Composite By Stir Casting Technique Table 2 Preheating temperatures of samples (i-v). SAMPLE PREHEATING NUMBERS (CENTIGRADE) SAMPLE I 450 SAMPLE II 450 SAMPLE III 450 SAMPLE IV 450 SAMPLE V NO BLA FIRST, the samples are taken in the below manner by dividing into 5 parts. SECOND, the samples are taken and casting is done accordingly THIRD, the BLA samples are preheated upto required temperatures. The samples are preheated in a furnace and their temperatures are shown in the table 2. This procedure is done for the better mixture of the ash with the aluminium. And after that stirrer is used in order to mix it well and the speed variations are noted below in the tabular form. The variations in the speed are due to the slag. As the BLA percent increase the slag also gets increased. Figure 3 The picture while doing the casting. Table 3 Sample numbers and speed of the stirrer SAMPLE NUMBERS SPEED (RPM) SAMPLE I 330-719 SAMPLE II 510-860 SAMPLE III 330-707 SAMPLE IV 290-822 SAMPLE V NOT REQUIRED http://iaeme.com/Home/journal/IJMET 354 [email protected] Kammuluri.Baburaja, Dhayapulley Sai Chaitanya Kishore, Showri Ravi Teja Dasari, Venkata Sai Alusuri, Mahabub Jani Shaik, Avinash Lingineni, Raju Ravuri Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6 Yield strength & Ultimate Tensile Strength The test has been conducted on various samples using Universal Testing Machine (UTM). Table 4 Yield strength and Ultimate Tensile Strength of Samples SAMPLE YIELD STRENGTH ULTIMATE TENSILE NUMBERS (KN) STRENGTH (KN) Sample – I 45 60 Sample –II 48 65 Sample –III 50 70 Sample –IV 55 82 Sample –V 44 58 3. CONCLUSIONS http://iaeme.com/Home/journal/IJMET 355 [email protected] Synthesis and Characterization of Aluminium-Bamboo Leaf Ash Metal Matrix Composite By Stir Casting Technique In the present work ABLA MMC is successfully fabricated with the aluminium as matrix material and Bamboo leaf ash, Ti and Graphite as reinforcement by using Stir Casting. From the results it was investigated that the 40 gm BLA has more yield Strength and Ultimate Tensile Strength when comparing it with aluminium sample. The end results clearly show that the 40gm ABLA MMC is the perfect proportion of mixture to be added to ensure good strength. The perfect mixture is 40 gm Bamboo Leaf Ash, 10.4 gm Graphite, 160.96 gm Potassium hexafluorotitanate.