A Characterisation of Al6061 RedMud Composite

Resumen o Introducción

Red mud emerges as the major waste material during production of alumina from bauxite by the Bayer’s process. It comprises of oxides of iron, titanium, aluminum and silica along with some other minor constituents. Based on economics as well as environmental related issues, enormous efforts have been directed worldwide towards red mud management issues for example of utilization, storage and disposal. Different avenues of red mud utilization are more or less known but none of them have so far proved to be economically viable or commercially feasible. It is generally agreed that resistance to wear of MMCs is created by reinforcement and also the wear properties are improved remarkably by introducing hard intermetallic compound into the aluminium matrix.

The reinforcing materials are generally SiC, Al2O3, TiB2 etc and are costly. The present research work has been undertaken with an objective to explore the use of red mud as a reinforcing material as a low cost option. This is due to the fact that red mud alone contains all these reinforcement elements and is plentifully available. Composites are prepared by liquid melt metallurgy techniques using vortex method. Castings are cut, turned and shaped into the required size to prepare the specimens for evaluation of the mechanical properties like hardness, tensile and wear properties.