Fatigue Behaviour of Silicon Carbide and Fly Ash Dispersion Strengthened High Performance Hybrid Al 5083 Metal Matrix Composites

Abstract

Fatigue is a major issue concerning the use of aluminium composites in structural applications. Fatigue leads to weakening of material majorly due to the strain bands formed in the material when it is subjected to repeated loading; the damage that occurs due to fatigue is a progressive and localized one. The fatigue may occur at a stress limit much lesser than the ultimate stress limit of the composite specimen. Henceforth in the current work, fatigue behaviour of silicon carbide and fly ash dispersion strengthened high performance hybrid Al 5083 metal matrix composites are evaluated. The main purpose of fatigue characterisation is to distinctly evaluate the life cycle of components that are fabricated from metal matrix composites and eventually develop a framework model for the significant study of fatigue strength of the structure with persistent striations all along the interstitials of aluminium- silicon carbide-fly ash interfaces. Fatigue is a stochastic process rather than a deterministic one that gives a considerable scatter, even among samples of similar composition with the tests carried out in some of the critically controlled environments. Hence there is a need for statistical validation of the results to authenticate the data collected. Thus in the current work, analysis of variance is carried out to establish the authenticity of the results and validate them. The results and plots are presented with suitable rationale and inferences.