Behaviour of millscale reinforced Aluminium Bronze composite

Abstract

Despite the desirable characteristics exhibited by most aluminium bronze, the deficient responses in certain critical applications have necessitated improvement in the mechanical properties. The microstructural and mechanical properties of cast aluminium bronze reinforced with iron millscale particles were investigated in this paper. Cast samples of the composite containing iron millscale particles (2-10 wt. %) were homogenized at 11000 C for 10 minutes to relieve the as-cast structures. The homogenised samples were subjected to physical, mechanical, and microstructural properties characterisation. The highest ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of 643.8 MPa representing 10.1 % improvement over conventional aluminium-bronze was obtained at 4 wt. % iron millscale particles reinforcement. Maximum impact resilience of 83.9 J and hardness value of 88.7 HRB were obtained at 4 wt. % reinforcement. This signals the birth of another viable means of millscale utilisation hitherto considered a waste thereby boosting the global effort at achieving a cleaner environment.