Experimental Analysis on the Mechanical and Microstructural Properties of Aluminium-Fly Ash Composite

Abstract

An experimental study on the mechanical and microstructural properties of Aluminium - Fly ash composite was carried out using stir casting process. The strengthening of aluminium was achieved by the addition of varying weight percent of fly ash into the aluminium matrix in the following variations 10%, 20%, 30% and 40%. The percentage weight of fly ash was weighed and added to the appropriate volume of molten aluminium. The Mechanical test which include tensile strength test, yield strength, % elongation and young's modulus were carried out on the samples. The outcome showed that at 10% weight of the fly ash, the optimum tensile strength was obtained at 109.41 MPa, the optimum yield strength at 107.76 MPa, and the % elongation at 15.1%. However, the optimum strength of the Young's modulus (2983.21 Joules) was obtained at the 20% weight of fly ash. It can therefore be deduced from this experiment that Aluminium-Fly ash composite attained most of its optimum properties at the 10% weight of fly ash. This experiment was carried out in other to strengthen the aluminium metal, and to determine at what weight percent can this strength be achieved using fly-ash. It then showed that at 10% fly ash, aluminium gave optimum strength. This mean that decrease in the fly ash increases the tensile strength of the composite. This study further gave clarity on the composition of Aluminium-fly ash, which possesses good enough strength for application in automobile industries.