• Ali, Asif

Abstract

<jats:p>Nowadays, low-cost particulate reinforced metal matrix composites withimprove mechanical properties are highly sought in various industrial andcritical engineering applications including automotive and aerospacesectors. Meanwhile, increasing consumption rate of African giant land snail(Archachatina marginata) had been posing disposal challenges of its shells.Therefore, this paper tends to investigates the influence of waste snailshells particulates on the physical and mechanical properties of recycledaluminum- silicon alloy matrix. Different weight proportions i.e. (0 - 7.5)wt% of calcined snail shell particles at an interval of 1.5 wt% weresuccessfully incorporated into Al-Si alloy matrix melted at 750 ?C usingstir-casting route. The microstructure, physical and mechanical propertiesof the resulting composites were examined and presented. Microstructuralexamination shows fairly uniform dispersion of snail shell particles in thealuminium alloy matrix intermingled with aluminium-silicon dendrites.Mechanical properties such as hardness, impact, compressive and tensilestrengths increased with increasing addition of calcined snail shellparticulate up to 6 wt% while density and elongation decreases. The totalequivalent density reduction of 5.4% in composites compared to unreinforcedalloy was obtained at 7.5 wt% snail shell addition. The maximum hardness,impact, compressive and tensile strengths obtained are 118?4 HV, 88 J,552?20 MPa and 211 ? 4.8 MPa equivalent to 21, 25, 19 and 36 percentincrease respectively relative to un-reinforced aluminium-silicon alloy.Hence, mechanical and physical properties of Al-Si alloy can be enhancedusing calcined snail shell particulates which can widen its application inautomotive industries.</jats:p>

Topics

• density
• dispersion
• aluminium
• strength
• aluminium alloy
• composite
• hardness
• Silicon
• casting
• tensile strength