Effect Of Microwave Heat Treatment on Aluminum 6061 Alloy Alumina Composite
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Date
2025-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Aluminum matrix composites are becoming more prevalent in the automotive industry because of their advantageous properties relative to traditional materials such as Steel or even pure Aluminum, This is also applicable for automotive parts such as control arms, because they allow for lightweight designs with high strength and better stiffness. The present work utilizes stir casting technique for the fabrication and mechanical characterization of aluminum 6061 alloy with variable weight percentages (5%, 10% and 15%) of aluminum oxide (Al2O₃) reinforcement. The primary objective was to investigate the influence of microwave heat treatment on the mechanical properties of the composite. Mechanical tests such as hardness, tensile and flexural strength were carried out in accordance with ASTM standards to evaluate performance improvements. It was shown that as Al2O₃ increases in levels, all the attributes evaluated significantly improved. Stir casting combined with microwave treatment proved to be an effective processing route for the development of structural grade aluminum matrix composites. The composite with a composition of 15 % Al₂O₃ reinforced showed the promising results for double control arm application, with a tensile strength of 330 MPa, flexural strength of 411.3 MPa and Rockwell hardness of 74.3 HRB. These properties make the composite suitable for the intended application.
Finite element analysis is carried out to validate the experimental findings using ANSYS 19.2 commercial software, demonstrate a strong correlation between experimental and ANSYS simulation the percentage error remains consistently low within 4% indicating reliability. For the application area analysis with a Von - Mises stress of 173.76 MPa and maximum total deformation of 0.135mm. The results obtained from both experiments and FEA show that the Aluminum 6061 matrix reinforced with Al₂O₃ composite is a suitable alternative for double control arm.
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Aluminum 6061, Alumina, stir casting, microwave heat treatment, mechanical characterization.