Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

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Materials Today: Proceedings

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Influence of aluminum addition on the mechanical properties of brass/Al

composites fabricated by stir casting
Mohammad Azad Alam a,b, H.H. Ya a,⇑, Akhlaq Ahmad b, Mohammad Yusuf c, Mohammad Azeem a,
Faisal Masood d
a
Mechanical Engineering Department, Universiti Teknologi Petronas, Seri Iskandar, Perak, Malaysia
b
Mechanical Engineering Department, IFTM University, Moradabad, U.P, India
c
Chemical Engineering Department, Universiti Teknologi Petronas, Seri Iskandar, Perak, Malaysia
d
Electrical Engineering Department, Universiti Teknologi Petronas, Seri Iskandar, Perak, Malaysia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Brass has an interesting set of characteristics, such as good wear capabilities and high electrical and ther-
Available online xxxx mal conductivity. Aluminium has been utilized as reinforcement and matrix in the development of
advanced composites. In the present investigation, the new unique material the brass/Al composite
Keywords: has been developed by liquid casting route. The effect of Al filler in varying wt.% on the mechanical prop-
Brass/Al Composites erties of new brass/Al composites were investigated. The tensile strength and hardness were evaluated
Casting process for produced composites. The microstructural features were observed by optical microscopy. The optical
Tensile strength
microscopy revealed the uniform distribution of Al particles in the brass matrix. The tensile strength and
Hardness
Microstructure
hardness increased by increasing the Al contents. It was interestingly observed that the addition of 4 wt%
Al exhibits the uniform distribution of irregular block shape strengthening phase and has the best
mechanical properties. The fine surface was obtained by addition of Al. This research work provides an
advanced strategy for improving the overall characteristics of existing brass.
Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific
committee of the 2nd International Conference on Innovative Technology and Sciences (iCITES 2020).

1. Introduction
Brass has long been a very popular material for many engineer-
ing applications such as a decoration utensil, doorknobs and
drawer pulls. Due to its outstanding features such as no mag-
netism, and good machinability, brass (Cu-Zn) alloy is extensively
used as an engineering material [1]. In order to get a sufficiently
good formability, high copper content (larger than 60 percent) is
needed to produce products via cold working. However, lower
strength, hardness and resistance against wear limited the applica-
tions of brass in many industrial appliances. Also brass can corrode
in presence of water or moisture. Hence a unique material is
required which can improve these characteristics of brass when
combined with it. Aluminum is commonly used to alter the phase
structure and other mechanical properties of brass [2]. Aluminum
enables the brass to be stronger and good corrosion resistant. Alu-
minum is also added into the brass when good surface finish of the
component and high machining performance is needed. Aluminum
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: hamdan.ya@utp.edu.my (H.H. Ya).
and its alloys are frequently used as filler and matrix materials in
the development of composites [3–5]. For several years, the advan-
tages offered by the presence of Aluminum have been appreciated
to promote chip fracture, decrease cutting forces, increase machin-
ing rate and efficiency, decrease instrument wear, and improve
surface finish [6].
When the structure switches from all-beta to alpha + beta [du-
plex] and from duplex to all-alpha, significant performance
improvements occur. In extreme cases, alloys containing just
under 15 percent Zn are dezincified. Some alloying additives have
a significant impact on the structure of brass by altering the alpha,
beta, or gamma phase proportion available. Reinforcement Al is
added into the brass as solid solution strengthener and it leads to
enhancement in the fractional area of b-phase [7]. Nevertheless,
when significant quantities of Al are applied to the brass matrix,
the brittle and coarser intermetallic compounds formation occurs,
there is a substantial decline in mechanical properties is observed.
Many studies have been done on brass and Aluminum composites
and their by various fabrication technique [8]. However, the liter-
ature review about the influence of Al on the brass mechanical

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2021.02.321
2214-7853/Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 2nd International Conference on
Innovative Technology and Sciences (iCITES 2020).

Please cite this article as: Mohammad Azad Alam, H.H. Ya, A. Ahmad et al., Influence of aluminum addition on the mechanical properties of brass/Al com-
posites fabricated by stir casting, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2021.02.321
Mohammad Azad Alam, H.H. Ya, A. Ahmad et al. Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

strength and hardness are very little and it must be explored in

more details.
In the present investigation, a unique brass/Al composites have
been fabricated by liquid casting method. The effect of strengthen-
ing element (wt.%) on the tensile strength and hardness of the
brass -x wt.% Al (x = 2,4 and 6 wt%) composites were studied. The
optical microscopy observation is taken for microstructural charac-
teristics. The statistical analysis has been done by one way Anova
using Minitab.
Fig. 1. The casted specimen for (a) tensile testing and, (b) hardness testing.

2. Experimental work
3. Results and discussion
Liquid casting method is widely accepted process to produce
3.1. Microstructures of brass/Al composites
the various metal composites. In comparison to other manufactur-
ing methods, it has many advantages including reduced fabrication
The microstructural observations by optical microscopy of pro-
time, lower cost, its relevance to large scale production and
duced composites are depicted in Fig. 2. It can be observed form
improved mixing of reinforcement in the matrix [9]. Following
Fig. 2 that refinement in the grain size is achieved with the addi-
are the experimental details for the current research work.
tion of Al in varying proportions. Al reinforcement particles are
also visible in brass matrix. The firm grain boundaries depict that
2.1. Composites preparation

In this work, liquid casting method was utilized to produce the

brass/Al composites. For each sample preparation, a chunk of small
size of brass weighing 1 kg were melted in the furnace. As the fur-
nace temperature reached 900 °C, brass started to melt. The rein-
forcement, pre milled Al powder in three different weight (20 g,
40 g and 60 g), was dropped at the rate of 1 g/min in the com-
pletely melt brass matrix in the ladle. Then the melts were poured
in the die cavity of permanent mold at 950 ± 20 °C. The melt
acquires the liquid–solid state after 10 min of pouring. Then nor-
mal cooling is allowed to cool the mold. To maintain the geomet-
rical uniformity of the samples, brass/Al composite samples gone
through little machining operations to make them in suitable
dimensions and removal of extra projections. These prepared spec-
imens were further finished by various size of emery papers. The
same procedure was repeated for each sample.

2.2. Microstructural test

Fig. 2. The microstructure of (a) brass, (b) brass/2 wt% Al, (c) brass/4 wt% Al, (d)
The microstructure of the prepared samples was observed by an brass/6 wt% Al.
optical microscope. The cast specimen was cut into cylindrical disc
of dimension 12 mm diameter and 6 mm thick from different sam-
ples of prepared composites. The metallography operations grind-
ing, polishing and etching was followed to prepare the sample
before observations. The suitable etchant was prepared by mixing
distilled water 200 ml, ferric chloride 10gm and hydrochloric acid
50 ml and immersion of samples were done for etching of the sam-
ples. The well-polished and etched surface was exposed for the
observation.

2.3. Mechanical tests

Tensile test (Uniaxial) is the most widely utilized for finding the
mechanical strength of the isotropic materials. Tensile test and
hardness test was carried out for the prepared samples. The tensile
test run was conducted at room temperature by computer aided
universal testing machine for high experimental accuracy. For
The ASTM E10-15a standard were followed in preparation of hard-
ness samples of the synthesized composites. The casted tensile
specimen and hardness samples are shown in Fig. 1. All the tensile
strength and hardness measurement was noted four times for each
test sample and the mean values were taken into consideration for
study. Fig. 3. Tensile strength variation plot with addition of Al particles.

2
Mohammad Azad Alam, H.H. Ya, A. Ahmad et al.
Fig. 4. Influence of addition of Al particles on the hardness of the brass/Al
composites.
Al particles are successfully dispersed in the matrix. Few agglomer-
ations of the Al particles are observed in Fig. 2(d), as the wt.% of Al
is 6%. The uniform dispersion of filler materials in brass matrix is
responsible in the improvement in tensile strength and hardness.
After adding the 2% Al, the microstructure revealed a slight decre-
ment in grain size, at the same time needle like structure is
observed. The grains are of Columnar shape and having mainly
ß-phase along with alpha needles embedded in the matrix. Some
Fig. 5. Main effects plot for (a) Tensile strength, (b) Hardness and (c) Bubble plot with Wt. % Al as a bubble size.
3
Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx
minute pores are also visible in all the samples, it is attributed to
minor casting defects produced during the casting of the
composites.
3.2. Mechanical properties of brass/Al composites
The mechanical properties of brass and brass/Al composites
were evaluated and analyzed in the form of tensile strength and
hardness. The tensile strength for all compositions of composites
is higher than the brass matrix as observed in Fig. 3. With the addi-
tion of 2 wt% Al the slight improvement (2.25%) in the tensile
strength is was observed. The highest increment was noted as
10.67% as compared to base matrix at 4 wt% Al addition. There is
minor improvement (5.5%) noticed for 6 wt% reinforcement. Also
the surface finish is improved by addition of Al. These results are
in the similarity with the previous work [2].
The variations in hardness of brass and Brass/Al composites are
reported in Fig. 4. The Rockwell hardness of brass is 40. The max-
imum increment in the hardness was observed for the 4 wt% Al
addition. The hardness of all samples of the composites is higher
than the base matrix. The increment in the hardness in all the sam-
ples is attributed to many reasoning viz. disruption in movement
of the dislocations, Uniform distribution of Al particles in brass
matrix and refinement of the grain of matrix. However, the hard-
ness of 6 wt% Al- brass composites declines as compared to 4 wt
% Al. These results are in similar to available literature [2,6].
3.3. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) analysis of brass/Al composites
Analysis of variance has been done to analyze the influence of
single process parameter i.e. weight percentage of Al on the two
response variables. In the current research work Minitab-18 was
Mohammad Azad Alam, H.H. Ya, A. Ahmad et al.
Fig. 6. Contour plot of the composites.
used for ANOVA analysis. Main effect plots and contour plot has
been revealed in Fig. 5 and Fig. 6 respectively. Fig. 5(a) and (b)
shows the tensile strength and hardness variation along the mean
line of the response. Fig. 5(c) depicts the bubble diagram for the
two response.
The bubbles size indicates the Weight percentage of the rein-
forcement. The mid bubble is showing the highest percentage of
Aluminum weight percentage.
3.3.1. Contour plot of brass/Al composites
In the current work, contour plot is graphically represented to
explore the potential relationship among the single input parame-
ter in relation to the output. Fig. 6 depicts the contour plot of ten-
sile strength and hardness with respect to input parameters.
The green darker regions identify higher Z-values (Tensile
strength). The Tensile strength higher than 340 Mpa can be
observed at a higher Wt.% of Aluminum. This is due to the reason
of improvement in the properties of composites by addition of
wt.% Al. Additionally, contour plot also imply the region sur-
rounded by the different scores of the tensile strength. The contour
area also indicates the interaction effect of input with two outputs.
The results also in the similar to the previous study [10].
4. Conclusions
From the investigations of the current study, the following con-
clusions are derived for casted Brass/Al composites.
Liquid casting method was adopted to fabricate the aluminum
reinforced brass matrix composites. The microstructure analysis
was done by optical microscopy, tensile strength and Rockwell
hardness were investigated in detail. ANOVA analysis was done
for statistical analysis of the results obtained for the synthesized
composites. The main effects plots were studied for tensile
strength and hardness of the composites. The tensile strength,
hardness and surface texture were significantly improved with
Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx
the addition of Al particles in brass matrix in different weight ratio.
Highest improvement in mechanical properties of fabricated com-
posites were observed for 4 wt% of Al in the brass matrix.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Mohammad Azad Alam: Conceptualization, Writing - original
draft, Supervision. H.H. Ya: Conceptualization. Akhlaq Ahmad:
Methodology. Mohammad Yusuf: Writing - review & editing.
Mohammad Azeem: Writing - review & editing. Faisal Masood:
Writing - review & editing.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the IFTM University,
Moradabad, India and Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Malaysia
for the all necessary facilities required for this research work.
The author also thanks to all lab technicians for their help during
experiments.
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