Erosion wear behaviour of A357/fly ash composites

In this article, a new metal–matrix composite was developed with fly ash (an industrial waste from petroleum industries) as reinforcement and aluminium metal (A357) as a matrix by squeeze casting technique. This study was concentrated on the processing of the composites with different weight percentage ranging from 0 to 10 wt.% in a step of 2.5 each and also reported the erosion wear behaviour. Solid particle erosion of A357/fly ash composites was carried out with four velocities (48, 70, 82 and 109 m/s), at impact angles (30°, 45°, 60° and 90°), with silica as an abrasive particle at ambient temperature. The eroded surfaces were analysed by scanning electron microscopy. The results revealed that the impact velocity and impingement angle both affected the erosion wear behaviour of the composites. The erosion rate rises with an increase in impact velocity, irrespective of the change in impingement angle and weight percentage of the fly ash. The erosion mechanism studied for the composites is microploughing and microcutting.