Narrow Results

Aluminum alloys are widely employed in design and material selection in the industry due to their superior ergonomic properties and low cost. Therefore, aluminum has been strengthened with various elements and powder metal reinforcements in recent studies. In this study, the 6061 aluminum alloy, which is used widely in production, was reinforced with B₄C powder metal and copper elements in a hybrid form. The mechanical, metallurgical, and machinability properties of all reinforced 6061 aluminum materials were examined and characterized. In particular, this study examined the machinability of the materials produced differently from the literature by using equations of energy power conversion and the Taguchi Method, which is one of the experimental design methods, and compared the results of the machining process for different materials. Furthermore, the effects of feed rate, cutting speed, and amount of passes on machinability properties were investigated by conducting the ANOVA analysis on the experimental design parameters and levels. Consequently, while Cu and B₄C reinforcement improved the hardness and mechanical properties, positive results were also obtained on machinability.

In the present paper, the silica-phenolic composite (S-Ph) composites with different amount of B₄C were prepared, and the ablation tests of these composites were carried out using oxygen–acetylene jet. The ablation process was systematically investigated. The addition of B₄C with appropriate amount can efficiently improve the ablation resistance of S-Ph. The results showed that S-Ph containing B₄C powder of 2wt.% exhibited the lowest linear and mass ablation rate. The influence mechanism for the results was analyzed deeply. The surface morphologies, phase composition, density and thermal conductivity of composites were characterized using a scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Archimedes method, and thermal conductivity meter, respectively. The present investigation will provide a theoretical basis for the preparation of the ablation resistant material.

In this study, the surface of AISI 430 stainless steel was alloyed with B₄C using the plasma transferred arc welding hardface coating method and the effect of Ti addition was examined. The microstructure of the resultant hardface coating layer was examined through X-ray diffraction (XRD) analyses by using the scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Abrasive wear resistance was analyzed by measuring mass loss according to the L${}_{16}$ orthogonal array using the Taguchi design method. The “smaller the better” principle of the Taguchi method was used in graphic evaluations. Additionally, the effect of wear test factors on mass loss was calculated in % by performing the analysis of variance. As a result, the austenite, martensite, M${}_{23}$(B,C)₆, M₇(B, C)₃, Ti (B,C), Fe₃(C,B), Fe₃C, Fe₂C and Ti (B,C) phases were detected in the coating layers. The effect of these phases on wear behavior was evaluated. In addition, the optimization of the parameters was obtained with response surface methodology (RSM) based on Taguchi orthogonal experimental design. The results given by the effect parameters required for the developed wear estimation are successful. As a result of the ANOVA analysis, the most effective parameters for wear resistance mass loss were determined as wear distance, applied load and abrasive, respectively. It was observed not to have any effect on wear mass loss of the samples. The most suitable parameter values for the lowest wear values were determined.

In this work, the surface of AISI 430 stainless steel was coated with a hyper-eutectic FeCrC and pure B₄C powders using the plasma transferred arc (PTA) welding method. Further, the microstructure, microhardness, and abrasive wear resistance of the coated layer were evaluated in this work. Hard coating layers were formed between 750HV and 1000HV from the PTA melting coating process with high energy input (due to PTA). Due to the addition of FeCrC and B₄C, the martensite, austenite, M₇(C-B)₃, M${}_{23}$(C-B)₆, Cr(C-B), FeCr, Fe₂B, Fe₃C, Fe₂C, SiC, and Fe₃(C-B) phases were formed in the coating layer which makes the layer very hard. The abrasive wear resistance of the coated layer was evaluated using the Taguchi method with L${}_{16}$ mixed-level orthogonal index. Samples, wear distance (m), applied load (N), and abrasive grain size (grid) were chosen as input parameters. The mass loss due to wearing was evaluated based on “the smaller the better”. All input parameters significantly influence the wear, but the highest effect was found with the wear (slip) distance. Also, a linear regression equation was obtained to estimate the mass loss between the parameters and the levels used.