Self-Lubricating Magnesium Composites: A comprehensive study on WS2/AZ91D hybrid composites

Concerns about better fuel economy and environmental emission reduction have promoted efforts to increase applications of lightweight materials in current engineering applications. In recent years, magnesium alloys and its composites have found major applications in the field of automobile, aerospace, electronics and defence industries due to their low density and high specific strength, which can lead to reduction in fuel consumption and greenhouse emission. Particularly in automobile industry, magnesium based metal matrix composites (MMCs) are attractive materials for construction of piston, brakes rotors, cylinder bores, cylinder liners, car door frames and steering wheel due to their specific modulus, stiffness, good damping capacities and dent resistance. In spite of these attractive range of properties, relatively poor creep resistance at high temperature, low modulus, low wear resistance and limited room temperature ductility are the serious impediments against their wider applications. Therefore, magnesium hybrid composites, the new generation of advanced engineering materials have been fabricated to provide the solutions to these limitations and fulfilling the demand of industries i.e. materials that are stronger, lighter and cheaper. There has been a limited number of books on characterization and fabrication of magnesiumbased composites with special emphasis on metal casting technique and its latest modification such as stir casting, squeeze casting, ultrasonic casting. While the ASM Handbook offers an exhaustive compilation of magnesium alloy properties, there has been a notable absence of efforts to consolidate and summarize the characteristics of emerging magnesium-based materials, particularly AZ91D magnesium alloy based composites fabricated through stir casting.Hence, the primary objective of this book is to furnish readers with a profound understanding of the science, attributes, and applications of contemporary and prospective magnesium hybrid composites, insight in self-lubricating AZ91D based composite fabricated using stir casting. Special emphasis is placed on historical background, fabrication of self-lubricating magnesium hybrid composites by adding SiC and WS2 particles and delineating their impacts on the resultant composite properties.The targeted audience for this book is engineers, scientists, technicians, students, and research scholar engaged in lightweight materials design, development, selection, manufacturing, and engineering disciplines.