Mechanical, surface and wear analysis of hybrid AA6082 reinforced with boron carbide and pistachio shell powder composite developed using stir casting technique

Abstract

In this study, the hybrid AA6082 composites reinforced with boron carbide (B 4 C) and carbonized pistachio shell powder were successfully fabricated using the stir-casting technique. Microstructural characterization by EDS, XRD, and SEM confirmed that the reinforcement particles were successfully incorporated and uniformly distributed without any undesirable phase formation. The composite with 8 wt.% B 4 C and 2 wt.% carbonized pistachio shell powder exhibited the best overall performance with a maximum hardness of 92 BHN and tensile strength of 384 MPa, equal to an improvement of 26.02% and 28.85%, respectively, compared to the base alloy. The optimized composite showed wear loss between 4.3 and 9.6 × 10 −6  kg m −1 compared to 4.6 and 10.5 × 10 −6  kg m −1 for the unreinforced AA6082 alloy, which indicates better wear resistance. These results demonstrate that the synergistic combination of B 4 C and carbonized pistachio shell powder is an effective and sustainable approach for improving the mechanical and tribological performance of AA6082 composites.