Experimental and optimization study of powder metallurgy process parameters of magnesium base AZ31 alloy using taguchi method

Abstract

Powder metallurgy (PM) is a highly effective re-processing method mostly used for magnesium-base alloys, especially in high-performance Mg alloys. In the present work, the experimental and optimization of PM process parameters, including compaction pressure, sintering temperature, and sintering time, for AZ31 magnesium alloy have been investigated using Taguchi Design of Experiment (DOE) and ANOVA method. The regression equation for obtaining density, porosity, and hardness of AZ31 Mg alloy has been formulated and experimentally validated. Three parameters are dependent in the current work, 450, 550, and 600 MPa compaction pressure, 455, 520, and 585ºC sintering temperature, and 30, 60, and 90 min sintering time. It was found that the factors determined beyond analyzing the main effect plots for means is an amalgamation of a compaction pressure (600 MPa), a temperature (585ºC) of sintering, and a time (60 min) of sintering. The optimal density, porosity, and hardness values determined from the regression equations are 1.82 g/cm3, 3.4%, and 72.10 HV, correspondingly. The experimental density, porosity, and hardness values for the samples treated at the optimum factors are 1.73 g/cm3, 2.2%, and 74.51 HV. The percentage error between the investigational outcomes and the outcomes resulted is < 3% for density, porosity, and hardness. The analysis ANOVA also found that the compaction pressure is the highly effective factor in the density, porosity, and hardness of sintered samples, followed by the same effective sintering temperature and time.

Keywords

• az31 magnesium alloy
• taguchi design
• anova analysis
• powder metallurgy
• microstructure