Powder metallurgy processing and characterization of recycled aluminium alloy/date seed composite for motorcycle lever application

Abstract

This paper reported aluminium alloy/date seed particulate composite fabricated by powder metallurgy technique for motorcycle lever application. The resulting aluminium alloy powder of 125 ?m particle size at different weight percent additions of 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20 wt% of 75 ?m particle sizes date seed milled powders were uniaxially compacted at 200 MPa. The sintered green samples at 580 ?C for 2 hours in muffle furnace were tested to evaluate the physical, mechanical and microstructure properties following standard procedures. Results of the fabricated composite were compared with original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and aftermarket motorcycle lever products. It was obtained that; density of the composites produced decreases with percentage weight increase in date seed addition from 2.71g/cm3 for unreinforced aluminium alloy to 2.613g/cm3 at 20 wt% date seed particulates additions. The peak ultimate tensile strength of 112.46 MPa, hardness of 63.00 BHN at 20 wt% DSP and impact energy of 78.00 J at 10 wt% of date seed additions were recorded as for peak strengths of the composite produced. The equivalent percentage increase in ultimate tensile strength and impact energy of the composite was 127.01, 13.39%, 137.86, 16.42% and 22.29, 7.33% relative to that of unreinforced alloy, aftermarket and original equipment motorcycle lever products respectively at 20 and 10 wt% date seed addition. Microstructure of the composites revealed a fairly uniform dispersion of date-seed particulate in aluminium alloy matrix. Hence, the study concluded that, aluminium alloy-date seed composite fabricated from powder metallurgy technique can replace both the original equipment manufacturer and aftermarket motorcycle lever component.

Keywords

• original equipment manufacturer
• aftermarket-parts
• aluminium alloy composite
• mechanical properties
• powder metallurgy
• motorcycle-lever