Effect of Friction Stir Processing On Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of the A390/Sic Composite: The Effect of Shoulder Diameter to Pin Diameter Ratio and Number of Passes

In the conventional casting process, the presence of porosity in the structure is inevitable. Compocasting method is one of the processes for composite production. Performing friction stir processing as a complementary process will modify the microstructure and good distribution of reinforcing particles in the matrix. Therefore, in this study, friction stir processing was used to improve the composite properties of A390 / 10wt% SiC composites. The FSP process was performed at rotational and traveling speeds of 800rpm and 40 mm / min, respectively. Three ratios of shoulder diameter to pin diameter (D/d) of 2, 2.5 and 3 were used, each of them was processed in one to three passes. An optical microscope (OM) was used to examine the microstructure of the processed samples. Microstructural data and its association with the results of the hardness and tensile test yielded the desired parameter. The results showed that FSP modifies the microstructure including resizing and distribution of SiC particles, primary silicon as well as changes the grain size of aluminum. The uniform distribution of particles on one side and the reduction of the grain size of aluminum, on the other hand, is effective in determining the desired parameter. The highest strength and toughness in the D/d ratio was 2.5 and in the third pass were 260MPa and 10.8M J/m3, respectively. Also, the average particle size of SiC, silicon and aluminum grains in the optimum parameter were 2.98, 14.98 and 16.3 μm, respectively.