The Influence of Microwave Sintering on the Tribological Performance of Powder Metallurgy Based Aluminum Cenospheres Composites

The Metal Matrix Composites (MMCs) especially Aluminum based systems have unique advantages of having superior mechanical, chemical and electrical properties, in addition to light weight and high stiffness. In this work, composites comprising of Aluminum with varied concentrations of Cenospheres as reinforcement was produced by Powder Metallurgy (PM) route. The densification of the composites was effected both by conventional and Microwave (MW) sintering techniques. The microstructures of the sintered samples were observed through scanning electron microscope (SEM) and phases by x ray diffraction technique (XRD), followed by evaluation of tribological parameter namely slide wear behavior and solid particle erosion resistance. The densities and the Brinell hardness values for the samples were also evaluated. The results showed that microwave sintered samples exhibited higher hardness, lower erosion and slide wear loss.