Stir Cast Production Parametric Interaction Effect on Toughness Property of Egg-Shell Reinforced Aluminium Composite

Abstract

In the field of material science, aluminium metal matrix composites (AMMC) have attracted a lot of attention. This is partly due to the need for reduced cost of production of composites by the introduction and utilization of naturally occurring resources as reinforcement. The eggshell particles have been used as reinforcement in the current investigation. Research on reinforced aluminium with egg-shell has been reported by several authors with commonly reduced toughness that has limited its application. This research uses the response surface methodology to optimize stir-casting process parameters for improved toughness on the casting of aluminium reinforced with eggshell in the proportion of 90% matrix and 10% reinforcement respectively. Stirring time, stirring speed and reinforcement preheat temperature were varied while taking other casting parameters constant for resulted toughness test being conducted. Box Behnken's Experimental design method determined parameter settings whereas the importance level of the parameters on toughness was resolute through analysis of variance (ANOVA). Parameters set at (Stirring Speed 241 RPM, Stirring time 6.5 minutes, and Reinforcement Preheat Temperature 125^oC) resulted in maximize toughness of 8.8 joules. The interaction effects of production parameters of stirring time and preheat temperature has the highest relative impact on the toughness response with a coefficient of 0.3000 from the output predicted mathematical model with the parameters of stirring time and stirring speed having the least interaction effect with a coefficient of 0.0500.