Mechanical properties of nano sic-reinforced aluminum a356 fabricated by stir casting method

Nano SiC-reinforced aluminumA356 (A356/SiC) has been successfully fabricated using stir casting method. The specimen was fabricated by adding various Nano SiC concentrations, i.e. 0, 0.10, 0.15, 0.20, 0.25, and 0.30 wt.%, at fix 1 wt.% magnesium into aluminum A356 melt. After stirring at certain time, the mixture was poured into the mold that has been preheated at 350^o C for 5 minutes. The mechanical properties were characterized using tensile, hardness, and wear testing, where as the microstructural observation was performed using an optical microscope. The results show that the mechanical properties were optimum at 0.25 wt.% Nano SiC with a strength of 175.57 MPa (21.87%), toughness of 0.0287 Joules/mm³ (14.8%), hardness of 56.54 HBN (50%), and wear resistance of 1.75 x 10^-5 mm³/mm (21.13%). These results indicate that the fabrication approach was successful in producing cast MMCs samples and the use of Nano SiC and Magnesium as a wetting agent with continuous stirring were found to promote the wettability of SiC and A356 matrix alloy and thus result in reasonable mechanical properties of the composite.