Morphological investigation and mechanical behaviour of agrowaste reinforced aluminium alloy 8011 for service life improvement

Abstract

Aluminium composite materials are beneficial in most engineering applications, most notably, because of their lightweight to strength ratio amongst many others. This study reports the reinforcement of aluminium alloy 8011 with cow horn and corncob in varying weight percentages of 5wt%, 10wt%, 15wt% and 20wt%. This study adopted the Stir casting method based on availability and cost-effectiveness as the cheapest method amongst others. The developed composite materials were in eight different samples alongside one control sample of the aluminium alloy base material. The samples used for this experimental study were tested for tensile strength, hardness and microstructural analysis. The outcome of the study shows that the sample with 20wt% of cow horn reinforcement gave the best-improved properties in terms of yield strength, ultimate tensile strength (UTS) and hardness with percentage improvement of 57%, 52.6% and 54.4% respectively. Hardness was also improved with 52.6% over the control sample with the 15wt% cow horn reinforced sample. Cow horn of 10wt% reinforcement improved the material by 61%. The results shown have justified the relevant effect of agro-waste materials in composite development.

Keywords

• Materials science
• Metallurgical engineering
• Mechanical engineering
• Composite
• Aluminium alloy
• Agrowaste