Evaluating the Mechanical Properties of Copper Red Mud Composites

  U.Hari Babu,  N.Vijaya Sai

Copper and its alloys have found wide application in electronic materials, wear-resistance , heat-resistance materials, torch nozzle materials, manufacture of bushes, bearings and high conductivity electrical contractors etc. Red mud emerges as the solid waste material during production of alumina from bauxite by the Bayer’s process. It consists of iron oxide, titanium, aluminum and silica along with some other minor constituents. Its disposal remains a worldwide problem in terms of environmental concerns. It is generally agreed that to improve hardness and wear resistance of MMCs by using hard intermetallic compound as reinforcement into the copper matrix. The reinforcing materials are generally SiC, Al2O3 etc are costly. The red mud alone contains all these reinforcement elements. The main objective of this paper is to explore the use of red mud as a reinforcing material as a low cost. The present investigation is aimed at producing copper red mud composite using copper as matrix and red mud as reinforcement. Copper red mud mixtures with different volume percentages were prepared. Copper red mud composites improve strength, stiffness and wear resistance. The density and coefficient of thermal expansion of composite decrease, and their hardness and wear resistance increases as their red mud content increases. The major drawbacks of these copper based composites are reduced conductivity and poor machinability. These two factors are strongly influence the popularity of the developed copper based composites in several technological fields of applications. To overcome this soft phase graphite is used as a additional reinforcement to the copper red mud composite. Graphite being a solid lubricant can improve the machinability of the composite. Furthermore, graphite possess excellent thermal and electrical conductivity thereby, can improve the conducting capability of copper composites.

Keywords- Copper, Red mud, MMC, reinforcement, composite

Unique Identification Number - IJEDR1501005
Page Number(s) - 20-24
Pubished in - Volume 3 | Issue 1 | Jan 2015
DOI (Digital Object Identifier) -   
Publisher - IJEDR (ISSN - 2321-9939)

  U.Hari Babu,  N.Vijaya Sai ,   "Evaluating the Mechanical Properties of Copper Red Mud Composites", International Journal of Engineering Development and Research (IJEDR), ISSN:2321-9939, Volume.3, Issue 1, pp.20-24, Jan 2015, Available at :http://www.ijedr.org/papers/IJEDR1501005.pdf