Effects of rice husk ash and silicon carbide addition on AA6351 hybrid green composites

This paper is aimed at studying the feasibility of the development of high-performance low-cost aluminium hybrid composites using silicon carbide (synthetic) and rice husk ash (agro waste) as reinforcements. Silicon carbide and rice husk ash were mixed using the ball-milling process in various wt.% proportions of 2:6, 4:4 and 6:2 to produce AA6351 green hybrid composites using the stir casting technique. Density and porosity measurement, microstructural characterisation, microhardness testing, tensile strength evaluation and dry wear testing were done to assess the performance of the developed hybrid composites. The hybrid composites with the reinforcement wt.% proportion of 6:2 silicon carbide to rice husk ash showed the best results of hardness (70·06 HV), tensile strength (182 MPa) and wear testing compared with the other wt.% proportions of the reinforcements. A cost saving of approximate 5·08% may be achieved with the incorporation of 2 wt.% rice husk ash content.