STATISTICAL MODELLING AND MECHANICAL BEHAVIOUR OF LATERITE NANOPARTICLES REINFORCED A356 ALUMINIUM ALLOY COMPOSITE
The increasing demand for cost effective and sustainable reinforcement materials in advanced engineering applications has stimulated interest in the utilization of naturally abundant resources such as laterite. The present research investigates the mechanical properties (tensile and impact strength) of laterite nanoparticles reinforced A356 aluminium alloy composite using a double stir casting process. Laterite nanoparticles with an average particle size of 27.37 nm were incorporated into the aluminium matrix to enhance its mechanical performance. The influence of processing parameters; pouring temperature (720°C, 740°C and 760°C), stirring speed (200rpm, 400rpm and 600rpm) and reinforcement composition (2, 4 and 6 wt%) on the composite properties were evaluated using Box-Behnken Design (BBD) and Response Surface Methodology (RSM) in Design Expert software (version 13). The developed composites were characterized through tensile and impact strength while microstructural features were examined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results revealed that, the tensile strength increases as the reinforcement content rises from lower levels (2 wt.%) to an optimal range of 3.5-4.5 wt.%, and beyond this optimal reinforcement level, a decline in tensile strength was observed. Also, as the temperature increases from 720 °C to an intermediate range of 740-750 °C, tensile strength improves significantly. Impact strength showed moderate improvement at 2 wt.% reinforcement at pouring temperatures of 730-745 °C with intermediate stirring speeds of 350-450 rpm, as the reinforcement percentage increases from 2 to 6 wt%, a gradual decline in impact strength was observed. The optimization process identified the optimal conditions as 760 °C pouring temperature, 600 rpm stirring speed and 2.802 wt.% reinforcement. Under these conditions, the predicted properties were 243.079 N/mm² tensile strength and 54.676 kJ/m² impact strength. These values correspond to improvements of 45.45 % and 27.06 % in tensile and impact strength respectively, compared to the unreinforced alloy. Microstructural analysis confirmed a relatively uniform dispersion of laterite nanoparticles within the matrix, which contributed to the enhancement of mechanical properties. Validation experiments were conducted at the optimized conditions, which showed good agreement with the predicted results, with minimal percentage errors of 2.48 % and 4.46 % for tensile and impact strength respectively. Since all errors were below 5%, the developed models were deemed statistically reliable and adequate for predicting the composite performance. The outcome of the research showed that, laterite nanoparticles is a viable and sustainable reinforcement material for aluminium matrix composites.
Authors : Abdulhamid, S., Muhammad, M.H., Bawa, M.A. and Abioye, A.M.
Category : Open Access Volume (Issue) : 12(1) Date Uploaded : 5th August 2026