Process Optimization and Wear Behavior of Red Mud Reinforced Aluminum Composites

This work presents the application of hybrid approach for optimizing the dry sliding wear behavior of red mud based aluminum metal matrix composites (MMCs). The essential input parameters are identified as applied load, sliding velocity, wt.% of reinforcement, and hardness of the counterpart material, whereas the output responses are specific wear rate and Coefficient of Friction (COF). The Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) is performed to optimize the multiple performance characteristics simultaneously. The Principle Component Analysis (PCA) and entropy methods are applied to evaluate the values of weights corresponding to each output response. The experimental result shows that the wt.% of reinforcements (%) followed by the sliding velocity (%) contributed more to affecting the dry sliding wear behavior. The optimized conditions are verified through the confirmation test, which exhibited an improvement in the grey relational grade of specific wear rate and COF by 0.3 and 0.034, respectively.