Volume 10 Issue 1 ( March 2023 )

Al-6063 Surface Composites (ASCs) fabricated using Friction Stir Processing (FSP), which enhances the hardness and tensile strength prodigiously appropriate for automotive applications, for example, piston skirts in the cylinder chamber. This covers the way for the examination of multi-pass impacts of graphene nano-powder filled in Al-6063 SCs for investigation of microstructure, hardness, tensile strength, and grain size. The microstructural analysis uncovers the homogenous dispersion of graphene nano-powder particulates in the Al- 6063 alloy, and on escalating the numbers of passes during FSP, uniform dispersion of graphene nano-powder in matrix material was observed due to a reduction of grain size in the produced Aluminum metal matrix composites (AMMCs). The results revealed that the superior microhardness of 106.4 VHN along with maximum tensile strength (217 ± 2 MPa) is achieved after the third pass of the tool. The minimum grain size of 23 μm was also observed in 3P- FSP-ed ASCs during friction stir processing.

Keywords: Al-6063, Friction stir process; graphene nano-powder; surface composites; hardness; tensile strength; microstructure.