Abstract Summary
Metal matrix composites are one of the essential materials that are employed in various engineering fields including automotive, civil, aerospace, etc. Developing low-cost and light composites having superior mechanical and dynamic properties for those fields is one of the critical goals for researchers. Based on this motivation, the experimental free vibration analysis of the manufactured aluminum potassium-feldspar metal matrix composite plate is conducted in the free-free boundary condition. For this purpose, an aluminum (A356) K-feldspar composite square plate with dimensions of 250x250x8 mm is manufactured by stir casting technique considering 0.5% wt. of reinforcement material. For comparison, the A356 square plate having the same dimension is developed as a reference material. Both materials are compared regarding the modulus of elasticity values and vibration characteristics. The experimental free vibration analysis is conducted by initiating the impulse response via PCB 086C01 model impact hammer. The vibration signals are obtained by using three PCB 352A24 model accelerometers whose sensitivity is 100 mV/g and each one has a mass of 0.8gr. The accelerometers are capable to operate within the frequency range of 0.4 – 12000 Hz. The vibration signals are sampled at 8 kHz and gathered via NI PXI 4496 data acquisition system using LabVIEW software. According to the experimental results, the manufactured aluminum K-feldspar composite material has a 10% higher modulus of elasticity value than that of A356. Such a difference in the modulus of elasticity is also experimentally observed in the fundamental vibration frequencies of the aluminum K-feldspar metal matrix composite plate. Keywords: Free Vibration, K-feldspar, Aluminum, Metal Matrix Composites. Acknowledgment: This study was supported by the Research Project Grant (Project number: 2018.KB.FEN.045) from Dokuz Eylül University Scientific Research Projects (BAP). We also would like to thank CMS Wheels for their support.
