Technical Report

Investigations on dry sliding wear behavior of in situ casted AA7075TiC

metal matrix composites by using Taguchi technique
S. Baskaran, V. Anandakrishnan

, Muthukannan Duraiselvam
Department of Production Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli 620015, Tamil Nadu, India
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 27 January 2014
Accepted 31 March 2014
Available online 12 April 2014
a b s t r a c t
High strength 7075 aluminum matrix composites with 4 and 8 wt.% of TiC particulate reinforcement was
synthesized by reactive in situ casting technique. X-ray diffraction analysis and scanning electron micros-
copy were used to conrm the presence of TiC particles and its uniform distribution over the aluminum
matrix. The dry sliding wear behavior of the as-casted composites was investigated based on Taguchi L
27
orthogonal array experimental design to examine the signicance of reinforcement quantity, load, sliding
velocity and sliding distance on wear rate. The combination of 4 wt.% of TiC, 9.81 N load, 3 m/s sliding
velocity and 1500 m sliding distance was identied as the optimum blend for minimum wear rate using
the main effect plot. Load and sliding velocity were identied as the highly contributing signicant
parameters on the wear rate using ANOVA analysis. Further a conrmation test was also conducted with
the optimum parameter combination for validation of the Taguchi results.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Light weight monolithic alloys are reinforced with hard second
phase particles to produce metal matrix composites, with
enhanced physical and mechanical properties, by suitable combi-
nations of matrix, reinforcements and processing routes, which
in turn increase their utilization in numerous applications. Partic-
ulate reinforced aluminum metal matrix composites, a class of
metal matrix composites takes ample attention in automobile
and aerospace industries due to their light weight, easy fabrication,
low cost, high wear resistance and isotropic properties [1]. The
production of composites are commonly done by various methods,
such as self-propagating high temperature synthesis [2], mechani-
cal alloying [3], reactive slag process [4], vacuum pressure inltra-
tion [5], direct metal laser sintering [6], spray deposition [7], stir
casting (ex situ) [8] and reactive processing (in situ) [9]. However,
in situ processing methods are prominent being economic, easy
and contributing several advantages over other methods like uni-
form distribution of very ne reinforcements, high interfacial
bonding strength between matrix and reinforcement, high degree
of thermodynamic stability and grain renement [9,10]. The most
universally used particle reinforcements revealed by vast literature
are TiC, Al
4
C
3
, SiC, Al
2
O
3
, B
4
C, TiB
2
and ZrB
2
, in which TiC has par-
ticular consideration due to its high hardness, high elastic modu-
lus, low density, low chemical reactivity, good wettability with
molten aluminum, thermodynamic stability and freedom from
observed gases [11].
Discontinuously reinforced aluminum based metal matrix com-
posites generally posses superior tribological properties when
compared with unreinforced aluminum alloys [12]. To understand
the tribological behavior of composites, so far several investiga-
tions were attempted, including the study of dry sliding wear
behavior of as-casted SiC reinforced aluminum metal matrix com-
posites by Ma et al. [13]. The dry sliding wear behavior of alumi-
num and aluminum matrix composites reinforced with different
volume percentages of SiC was studied by Bauri and Surappa
[14] and Jha et al. [15] using pin-on-disc method. Tyagi [16] fabri-
cated the in situ AlTiC composites with different volume fractions
and investigated its dry sliding wear behavior. Kumar et al. [17]
studied the abrasive wear behavior of in situ formed Al4Cu/TiB
2
composite at normal load of 1050 N. Mandal et al. [18] fabricated
Al12Si/TiB
2
composite by reaction between K
2
TiF
6
and KBF
4
salts
and analyzed the role of TiB
2
content in dry sliding wear behavior.
Venkataraman and Sundararajan [19] studied the formation and
fracture of the mechanically mixed layer during dry sliding wear
analysis of AA7075/SiC composites.
Design of experiments (DOE) is a most useful statistical tool
employed in many areas including but not limited to: engineering,
medical, basic science, agriculture, management for design com-
parison, variable identication, design optimization, process con-
trol and product performance prediction. Taguchi technique a
well known DOE tool was used by Basavarajappa et al. [20] to
study the effect of applied load, sliding speed and sliding distance
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2014.03.074
0261-3069/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 431 2503521; fax: +91 431 2500133.
E-mail address: krishna@nitt.edu (V. Anandakrishnan).
Materials and Design 60 (2014) 184192
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Materials and Design
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er . com/ l ocat e/ mat des
on dry sliding wear behavior of SiC and graphite particles rein-
forced aluminum composites and identied that sliding distance
has the highest inuence on their wear behavior. Using L
27
Taguchi
experimental design, Mahapatra and Patnaik [21] studied the
mechanical and erosion wear behavior of hybrid composites and
Sahoo [22] optimized the process parameters for wear behavior
of electroless NiP coatings against steel. Sahin [23] investigated
the abrasive wear behavior of AA201415 wt.%SiC composite by
L
9
Taguchi design and used analysis of variance(ANOVA) to analyze
the wear parameters. Koksal et al. [24] studied the effect of sliding
velocity, normal load, sliding distance and reinforcement ratio on
dry sliding wear behavior Al/AlB
2
composites and optimized these
parameters to get minimum wear rate by using L
9
Taguchi orthog-
onal array. Owing to above all, in the present work, aluminum
7075 based TiC reinforced metal matrix composites with varying
TiC content were fabricated by in situ reactive process and their
tribological behavior is investigated in a pin-on-disc tribo-meter
using Taguchi technique. Further the effect of reinforcement per-
centage, sliding velocity and load on the dry sliding wear behavior
of the developed composites is analyzed using standard statistical
tools.
2. Experimental details
2.1. Synthesis of composite material and experimental design
Aluminum alloy 7075 used for fabrication of the composite was
analyzed for purity and original chemical composition
was obtained as shown in Table 1. Initially 1.5 kg of AA7075 was
allowed to melt in a graphite crucible inside an electrical resistance
furnace and the molten aluminum was maintained at a tempera-
ture of 900 C. In order to obtain composites having different
weight percentages of TiC reinforcement by in situ casting tech-
nique, the appropriate weight of halide salt K
2
TiF
6
and graphite
powder to be added are stoichiometrically calculated and the same
is given in Table 2. The carefully weighed halide and graphite pow-
ders are mixed, preheated at 250 C for 2 h to eliminate moisture
and gently introduced into the molten aluminum at 900 C to get
stable and ne TiC particles [25,26]. Once in every 10 min, the melt
was stirred by using a graphite stirrer for allowing formation of
uniformly distributed TiC in the matrix alloy. During the in situ
process, the process parameters such as melting temperature, time
allowed for reaction are strictly adhered to standards available in
various literatures [1,2,4,11]. During the time of stirring, the occur-
rence of exothermic chemical reaction between molten aluminum
and the powders was observed by the drastic raise in melt temper-
ature. Thus, the raise in temperature in turn increased the uidity
of the melt and enhanced the formation of more amounts of
uniformly distributed ne TiC particles inside the melt. The
exothermic chemical reaction pertaining to the above process is
as follows [11]:
3K
2
TiF
6
4Al !3Ti 3KAlF
4
K
3
AlF
6
1
Ti 3Al !Al
3
Ti 2
Al
3
Ti C !TiC 3Al 3
The byproducts of the chemical reaction escaped as gases and
remaining oated as slag because of its low density, as explained
elsewhere [1]. The reaction ended at around one hour which was
observed by the absence of escaping gases and reaction sparks.
After removing the slag, the molten composite was poured into
the 250 C preheated permanent mould and allowed to get cooled
and solidied. Finally, the castings were removed from the mould
and cut into the desired shape and size. The same procedure was
followed to produce composites of different weight percentages of
reinforcement by adding the required amount of salt and graphite
powder as given in Table 2. In order to study the effect of addition
of TiC reinforcement in the AA7075, one set of casting was produced
without adding salt and graphite powder in the AA7075 melt which
is further referred as AA70750 wt.%TiC throughout this article. To
conrm the presence of various elements and TiC particles in the
castings, X-ray diffraction analysis was performed on the as-casted
Table 1
Chemical composition of AA7075 alloy (%).
Fe Si Mn Mg Zn Cu Ti Cr Al
0.215 0.0588 0.0524 2.06 5.52 1.56 0.0362 0.180 Remaining
Table 2
Quantity of halide salt and graphite powders added for obtaining various composi-
tions of materials.
Material composition Quantity of powder added (g)
K
2
TiF
6
Graphite
AA70750 wt.%TiC 0 0
AA70754 wt.%TiC 240.54 12.03
AA70758 wt.%TiC 481.08 24.06
Table 3
Control factors and their levels.
Control factors Units Level
1 2 3
Reinforcement wt.% 0 4 8
Load N 9.81 19.62 29.43
Sliding velocity m/s 1 2 3
Sliding distance m 1000 1500 2000
Table 4
Experimental results for wear rate with calculated S/N ratios.
Expt.
no.
Reinforcement
(wt.%)
Load
(N)
Sliding
velocity
(m/s)
Sliding
distance
(m)
Wear rate
(mm
3
/m)
S/N
ratio
1 0 9.81 1 1000 0.00191 54.38
2 0 9.81 2 1500 0.00147 56.65
3 0 9.81 3 2000 0.00109 59.20
4 0 19.62 1 1500 0.00290 50.75
5 0 19.62 2 2000 0.00253 51.94
6 0 19.62 3 1000 0.00367 48.71
7 0 29.43 1 2000 0.00485 46.28
8 0 29.43 2 1000 0.00266 51.50
9 0 29.43 3 1500 0.00230 52.76
10 4 9.81 1 1000 0.00264 51.56
11 4 9.81 2 1500 0.00149 56.53
12 4 9.81 3 2000 0.00070 63.09
13 4 19.62 1 1500 0.00395 48.06
14 4 19.62 2 2000 0.00242 52.32
15 4 19.62 3 1000 0.00278 51.11
16 4 29.43 1 2000 0.00441 47.11
17 4 29.43 2 1000 0.00228 52.84
18 4 29.43 3 1500 0.00142 56.95
19 8 9.81 1 1000 0.00193 54.28
20 8 9.81 2 1500 0.00138 57.20
21 8 9.81 3 2000 0.00126 57.99
22 8 19.62 1 1500 0.00369 48.65
23 8 19.62 2 2000 0.00286 50.87
24 8 19.62 3 1000 0.00213 53.43
25 8 29.43 1 2000 0.00501 46.00
26 8 29.43 2 1000 0.00308 50.22
27 8 29.43 3 1500 0.00229 52.80
S. Baskaran et al. / Materials and Design 60 (2014) 184192 185
material samples. Further, to see the size, distribution and morphol-
ogy of the in situ formed TiC particles and the grain structure of the
as-casted materials, microstructures were obtained by scanning
electron microscopy after etching with kellers etchant.
2.2. Wear test
The dry sliding wear tests were conducted as per ASTM: G99 to
evaluate the dry sliding wear behavior of the as-casted materials in
a DUCOM

pin on disc wear testing machine. Based on the avail-

able literatures [1324], amount of reinforcement, applied load,
sliding velocity, and sliding distance were identied as the impor-
tant dry sliding wear testing parameters and they are varied in
three levels as shown in Table 3. In order to reduce the number
of experiments for the selected parameters and their levels, a stan-
dard Taguchi L
27
orthogonal array was preferred to conduct the
experiments as shown in Table 4. Wear sample pins of 6 mm diam-
eter and 31 mm height prepared from the as-casted materials were
allowed to slide over hardened D3 steel counterpart disc having a
hardness of 63 HRC. In order to study the wear behavior of the pin,
keeping the counterpart without wear, the counterpart was chosen
to have hardness higher than that of the pin. The end faces of the
sample pins and contacting counterpart, polished to a surface
roughness close to 1 lm were kept perfectly at in order to get
uniform contact between pin and disc during the wear test. Before
and after each experimental run, the pin and the disc were cleaned
with acetone, dried and their masses were measured using an elec-
tronic weighing machine with least count 0.0001 g. The mass of the
disc was carefully examined to conrm that there was no consid-
erable wear in the counterpart as the mass loss of pin alone was
taken as a measure of sliding wear. The wear rate of the sample
pin was calculated by using the standard formula for wear rate
(Eq. (4)) as used elsewhere [27], for each and every experimental
run and provided in Table 4.
Wear rate mm
3
=m
Mass loss=density
Sliding distance

4
Fig. 1. X-ray diffraction results of as-casted AA7075 and composites.
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
TiC
TiC
Fig. 2. SEM image of the AA7075 matrix composites with TiC reinforcement: (a) 0 wt.%, (b) 4 wt.%, (c) 8 wt.% and (d) 4 wt.%.
Table 5
Response table for S/N ratios (smaller is better).
Level Reinforcement Load Sliding velocity Sliding distance
1 52.47 56.77 49.68 52.01
2 53.29 50.65 53.34 53.38
3 52.39 50.72 55.12 52.76
Delta 0.90 6.12 5.44 1.37
Rank 4 1 2 3
186 S. Baskaran et al. / Materials and Design 60 (2014) 184192
3. Results and discussion
3.1. X-ray diffraction analysis
X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns of the as-casted AA7075
0 wt.%TiC and the composites with different weight percentages
of TiC reinforcement are shown in Fig. 1. It is observed that, peaks
corresponding to aluminum are present in all the three materials,
whereas TiC peaks are present in AA70754 wt.%TiC and AA7075
8 wt.%TiC composites and no other reaction product peaks are seen.
Comparing the XRD peaks of composites, it is observed that the
intensity of the peaks corresponding to TiC is found to be higher
with increased amount of TiC in the materials.
3.2. Scanning electron microscopy
The scanning electron microscopy images of AA70750 wt.%TiC,
AA70754 wt.%TiC and AA70758 wt.%TiC are shown in Fig. 2(ad).
Very clear grain boundaries with the presence of precipitates homo-
geneously distributed along the grain boundaries are observed in
Fig. 2(a) corresponding to AA70750 wt.%TiC. From Fig. 2(b and c),
the grain sizes are observed to be relatively reduced with increasing
amount of TiC particles. The formed TiC particles are found to be
segregated along the grain boundaries homogeneously as seen in
Fig. 2(bd). The appearance of TiC particles which is observed by
thick grain boundaries is found to be more in AA70754 wt.%TiC
(Fig. 2(b)) and further more in AA70758 wt.%TiC (Fig. 2(c)) corre-
sponding to the amount of halide salt and graphite powder addition,
which is also evident by the intensity of corresponding peaks in
their respective XRD patterns (Fig. 1). At higher magnication as
shown in Fig. 2(d), the interfaces between the aluminum matrix
and TiC particles are clearly observed, and also the uniformdistribu-
tion of TiC particles is observed along the grain boundaries with the
appearance of some TiC particles dispersed inside the aluminum
matrix grains. The individual TiC particle measuring around 2 lm
could be seen visibly with its clear boundary and the interfaces
between the TiC particles are also observed in higher magnication.
All these observations are in good agreement with earlier litera-
tures, which states that the uniform distribution of reinforcement
particles, strong and clear interface between matrix and reinforce-
ment particles, formationof reinforcement withsize infewmicrons,
etc. are the possible advantages of in situ formation of reinforce-
ment over ex situ processes [1,4,9].
3.3. Statistical analysis
In Taguchi method, the objective function is converted to Signal
to Noise (S/N) ratio which is treated as the quality characteristic. In
the present work, wear rate is taken as the objective function and
Taguchis Lower the Better quality characteristic is chosen to
minimize the objective function (i.e. wear rate).
3.3.1. Analysis of factors
To analyze the effect of factors inuencing wear rate, the S/N
ratio values for all the experimental trials as shown in Table 4
are calculated using the statistical tool Minitab 16. The delta values
for individual factors are derived from the S/N ratio values as
shown in Table 5, using which the order of inuencing factors on
wear rate from high to low is identied as load, sliding velocity,
sliding distance and reinforcement respectively. From the main
effect plot as shown in Fig. 3, it is observed that in order to get
8 4 0
0.0035
0.0030
0.0025
0.0020
0.0015
29.43 19.62 9.81
3 2 1
0.0035
0.0030
0.0025
0.0020
0.0015
2000 1500 1000
Reinforcement (wt.%)
M
e
a
n
Load (N)
Sliding velocity (m/s) Sliding distance (m)
Fig. 3. Main effect plot for wear rate in mm
3
/m.
Fig. 4. Depth of wear of AA70758 wt.%TiC composite with respect to sliding
distance (up to 1000 m) at sliding velocity: (a) 1 m/s, (b) 2 m/s and (c) 3 m/s.
S. Baskaran et al. / Materials and Design 60 (2014) 184192 187
minimum wear rate, the optimal process parameters should be in
middle level for reinforcement (4 wt.%TiC), low level for load
(9.81 N), high level for sliding velocity (3 m/s) and middle level
for sliding distance (1500 m). Further it is also observed from the
main effect plot that load has the strongest inuence on wear rate
followed by sliding velocity and amount of reinforcement. The
load, being the predominating factor on wear rate, when increased
from 9.81 N to 29.43 N for AA70758 wt.%TiC composite, for all the
sliding velocities tested, the depth of wear is highly responsive and
found increasing as observed from Fig. 4(ac). This shows that,
when the load increases, the hard asperity of the counterface mate-
rial ploughs the softer surface of the pin deeper which is
Fig. 5. (a) Worn surface of AA70758 wt.%TiC composite for 29.43 N load at 1 m/s sliding velocity and (b) magnied view of zone A.
Element Weight (%) Atomic (%)
O K 33.04 48.07
Al K 53.72 46.34
Ti K 3.89 1.89
Fe K 6.22 2.59
Zn L 3.13 1.11
Totals 100.00
Fig. 6. Energy dispersive spectroscopy of worn surface of AA70754 wt.%TiC composite after sliding 2000 m with 3 m/s sliding velocity at 9.81 N load.
188 S. Baskaran et al. / Materials and Design 60 (2014) 184192
apparently seen in the worn surface of AA70758 wt.%TiC compos-
ite for highest load at 1 m/s sliding velocity as shown in Fig. 5(a
and b). Further, along the sliding direction, the worn surface is
observed with severe plastic deformation leading to formation of
parallel deep grooves with wear debris spread all over. The trend
of higher depth of wear at higher load as observed is similar to
the ndings reported by several investigators [3,5,8,13,14,16,18].
The stress concentration during sliding at higher load is more
at the sharp edges of the TiC particles which initiate cracks in
the matrix adjacent to the TiC particles which further propagates
parallel to the sliding direction and thereby gets segmented and
forms debris [28]. Thus, the debris formed in between the sliding
surfaces further plough the pin surfaces creating parallel and dee-
per ploughs all along the sliding surface as shown in Fig. 5(a). All
these mechanisms contribute severe plastic deformation or severe
wear on pin surface while sliding in dry environment at higher
loads. When the sliding velocity increases generally the amount
of heat generation elevates because of increased friction between
the sliding surfaces [29]. At this elevated temperature, the soft alu-
minum matrix on the pin gets severe plastic deformation and leads
to formation of mixture of the oxide surface known as mechani-
cally mixed layer (MML) which allows smooth sliding of the mat-
ing surface thereby reducing the wear rate [28] as observed in the
main effect plot for higher velocity. The formation of oxide in the
worn surface of AA70754 wt.%TiC composite after sliding
2000 m with higher sliding velocity (3 m/s) at low load (9.81 N)
condition is evidenced by the identication of O, Al, Ti, Fe and Zn
peaks in the selected zone (spectrum 2) by the energy dispersive
spectroscopic analysis as shown in Fig. 6. This behavior of lowwear
rate for higher sliding velocity was obtained in C/ZrO
2
composites
and reported by Jha et al. [15] and Zhu et al. [30] in their earlier
research work.
In any interaction graph, the parallel lines indicate the absence
and non parallel lines indicate signicant presence of interaction
effect of factors on the response. From the interaction plot for wear
rate as shown in Fig. 7, it is observed that the interactions of rein-
forcement with load is insignicant for lower loads and signicant
at higher load, the reason is at higher loads and large amount of
reinforcement, the ploughs formed are deeper, wider and more
in numbers which in-turn increases the wear rate. The interaction
of load with sliding distance is signicant for highest load after
sliding long distance is contrary to that of the other two low load
conditions because of the formation of more amount of larger deb-
ris which in-turn increases the wear rate. The interaction of sliding
velocity with sliding distance for lowest and highest velocities is
observed to be converse because of the softening of matrix mate-
rial at higher velocity which provides smooth sliding with lower
wear rate. The interaction of reinforcement with sliding velocity
and sliding distance and also the interaction between load and
sliding velocity are observed to be insignicant as the lines of
interaction are almost parallel.
Contour bands indicating ranges of wear rate against (a) rein-
forcement, load; (b) reinforcement, sliding velocity; (c) reinforce-
ment, sliding distance; (d) load, sliding velocity; (e) load, sliding
distance; and (f) sliding velocity, sliding distance are shown in
Fig. 8(af). From the contours shown in Fig. 8(a), it is observed that
for all the materials tested the wear rate is less than 0.002 mm
3
/m
when the load is lower than 12 N, 0.0020.003 mm
3
/m when the
load is 1219 N and 0.0030.004 mm
3
/m when the load is higher
than 19 N. Whereas, when the load is above 26 N, an exceptional
wear rate of less than 0.003 mm
3
/m is observed only for AA7075
4 wt.%TiC composite which shows that the AA70754 wt.%TiC com-
posite is having better wear resistance than AA7075 alloy and
AA70758 wt.%TiC composite at higher load. When the sliding
velocity is higher than 2 m/s, a better wear range of 0.001
0.002 mm
3
/m is observed irrespective of the amount of reinforce-
ment as shown in Fig. 8(b). But for lower sliding velocity (1 m/s),
the wear rate is observed to be higher than 0.003 mm
3
/m for all
the materials tested. FromFig. 8(c) it is observed that, the wear rate
for AA70754 wt.%TiC composite is less than 0.0025 mm
3
/m for a
wider range of sliding distance from 1100 m to 2000 m, whereas
for AA70758 wt.%TiC composite the wear rate is more than
0.0025 mm
3
/m above the sliding distance of 1550 m. From the
above inferences, it is apparent that AA70754 wt.%TiC composite
exhibits superior wear resistance than AA7075 alloy and AA7075
8 wt.%TiC composite. From the contour bands observed in
Fig. 8(d) it is apparent that the wear rate is high in the range of
0.0040.005 mm
3
/m for low sliding velocity and high load combi-
nation. Whereas, a better wear range of 0.0010.002 mm
3
/m is
observed for the combination of low load and high sliding velocity.
A moderate wear range of 0.00200.0025 mm
3
/m is observed for
high load at higher sliding velocity. The wear rate is high and above
0.004 mm
3
/m for higher sliding distance at higher load as shown in
Fig. 8(e). Whereas, the wear rate is less than 0.0020 mm
3
/m for a
wide range of sliding distance from 1100 m to 2000 m at low load
condition. It is evident from Fig. 8(f) that the wear rate is minimum
when the sliding velocity is higher than 2 m/s for a wider range of
sliding distance from 1150 m to 2000 m.
Fig. 7. Interaction plot for wear rate in mm
3
/m.
S. Baskaran et al. / Materials and Design 60 (2014) 184192 189
3.3.2. ANOVA analysis
ANOVA, a statistical tool is used to nd out the signicance of
the parameters on the wear rate. From the analysis of variance
for S/N ratios of the wear rate shown in Table 6 with computed
R-Sq value of 92.66%, load and sliding velocity are identied as
the signicant parameters with 50.09% and 31.26% contribution
respectively. The effect of reinforcement and sliding distance on
the wear rate is found to be insignicant with very low percentage
contributions.
3.3.3. Regression analysis
To predict the wear rate within the specied level values of
parameters, using regression analysis, a second order polynomial
regression equation for wear rate with signicant parameters is
derived with R-Sq value of 91.48% and given as Eq. (5)
Wear rate mm
3
=m
0:0000178 0:000265 B 0:000182 C
0:0000048 B B
0:0000464 B C 0:0000000513 B D
0:000352 C C
0:000000735 C D 0:000000751 A B
0:0000516 A C
0:0000000618 A D
8
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
<
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
:
9
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
=
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
;
5
where A is Reinforcement in wt.%, B is Load in N, C is Sliding velocity
in m/s and D is Sliding distance in m. The residuals (errors) are
found to be normally distributed along the straight line in the
normal probability plot for wear rate as shown in Fig. 9.
(a)
(b)
0.0030
0.0030
0.0025
0.0020
Reinforcement (wt.%)
L
o
a
d

(
N
)
28
26
24
22
20
18
16
14
12
10
0.0020
0.0025
0.0030
Wear rate
0.0040
0.0020
0.0035
0.0030
0.0025
0.0020
Reinforcement (wt.%)
S
l
i
d
i
n
g

v
e
l
o
c
i
t
y

(
m
/
s
)
8 7 6 3 2 1 0 5 4
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.0020
0.0025
0.0030
0.0035
Wear rate
0.0010
8 7 6 3 2 1 0 5 4
(c)
0.0025
0.0025
Reinforcement (wt.%)
S
l
i
d
i
n
g

d
i
s
t
a
n
c
e

(
m
)
2000
1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
0.0020
0.0025
0.0030
Wear rate
0.0020
0.0030
0.0030
8 7 6 3 2 1 0 5 4
(d)
0.0040 0.0035 0.0030
0.0025 0.0025 0.0020
Load (N)
S
l
i
d
i
n
g

v
e
l
o
c
i
t
y

(
m
/
s
)
0 1 2 1 4 1 6 1 8 1 0 2 2 2 4 2 6 2 8 2
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.0020
0.0025
0.0030
0.0035
0.0040
0.0050
Wear rate
0.0050
0.0010
0.0020
(e)
(f)
0.0035
0.0030
0.0025 0.0020
Load (N)
S
l
i
d
i
n
g

d
i
s
t
a
n
c
e

(
m
)
0 1 2 1 4 1 6 1 8 1 0 2 2 2 4 2 6 2 8 2
2000
1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
0.0020
0.0025
0.0030
0.0035
0.0040
Wear rate
0.0040
0.0035
0.0020
0.0040
0.0035
0.0030
0.0025
0.0025
0.0020
Sliding velocity (m/s)
S
l
i
d
i
n
g

d
i
s
t
a
n
c
e

(
m
)
3.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0
2000
1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
0.0020
0.0025
0.0030
0.0035
0.0040
Wear rate 0.0050
0.0010
0.0030
Fig. 8. Contour plot for wear rate with respect to: (a) load, reinforcement, (b) sliding velocity, reinforcement, (c) sliding distance, reinforcement, (d) sliding velocity, load, (e)
sliding distance, load and (f) sliding distance, sliding velocity.
190 S. Baskaran et al. / Materials and Design 60 (2014) 184192
4. Conrmation test
A conrmation test was conducted based on the combination of
optimal level (i.e. A2B1C3D2) of each parameter obtained from
main effect plot and response table of wear rate. A very low per-
centage error of 3.75% is obtained between the predicted and
experimental value showing a very good correlation as shown in
Table 7.
5. Conclusions
The dry sliding wear tests were conducted by pin-on-disc wear
tester on the in situ fabricated AA7075 and AA7075 metal matrix
composites containing 4 and 8 weight percentages of TiC reinforce-
ment using a Taguchi L
27
orthogonal array design. The following
conclusions are made from this study.
(1) The AA7075 matrix TiC reinforced composites were success-
fully fabricated through in situ casting technique.
(2) The XRD analysis conrmed the presence of TiC particles in
the composites.
(3) SEM analysis showed that TiC particles were uniformly dis-
tributed along the grain boundaries and the average size of
in situ formed TiC particles was found to be less than 2 lm.
(4) From the main effect plot, the optimal level combination for
minimum wear rate was identied as 4 wt.%TiC reinforce-
ment, 9.81 N load, 3 m/s sliding velocity and 1500 m sliding
distance (i.e. A2B1C3D2).
(5) From the ANOVA analysis, the signicant parameters were
identied as load and sliding velocity with percentage con-
tribution of 50.09% and 31.26% respectively with R-Sq value
of 92.66%.
(6) Finally from the conrmation test conducted based on the
optimal level combination, the obtained wear rate was
found to be very close to predicted value with a minor error
of 3.75%.
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Seq SS
b
Adj SS
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Adj MS
d
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