Experimental Analysis of Density of Sintered SiCp Reinforced AMMCS Using the Response Surface Method

The continuous development of technology in automotive manufacturing process demands new solutions which is largely de-pendent on the development of lightweight, nonpollution for the environment materials of improved mechanical properties and also with a low cost production. According with these required characteristics of materials, the aims of this paper were to manufacturing Al-SiCp composites by powder metallurgy (P/M) processing route. Since density is a pre-dominant factor in the performance of powder metallurgy components, it has been primarily considered for the present investigation. An experimental investigation have been undertaken in order to understand the variation of density with respect to the variation of process parameters viz., variation of silicon carbide proportion, compacting pressure and sintering time. The relation among the various process parameters with density has been studied. A mathematical model has been developed using second order response surface model (RSM) with central composite design (CCD) considering the above mentioned process parameters. The mathematical model which developed in this investigation would help in predicting the variation in density with the change in the level of different parameters influencing the density variation. This mathematical model also can be useful for setting of optimum value of the parameters for achieving the target density.