The Appraisal of the thermal properties, electrical response, and corrosion resistance performance of AA8011 reinforced Nano Si3N4 for automobile application
AA8011-5 wt% Si3N4, AA8011-10 wt% Si3N4, AA8011-15 wt% Si3N4, and AA8011-20 wt% Si3N4 were developed via two-steps stir casting route of liquid metallurgy. The influence of the inclusion of the non-conductive inorganic nano ceramic Si3N4 on the thermal properties, electrical behavior, and corrosion resistance performance of the conductive AA8011 matrix was investigated. The thermal responses via thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential thermal analysis (DTA) revealed a decrease in the material mass loss and an increase in the melting point temperature with respect to the increase in Si3N4 addition respectively as a function of temperature rise in a controlled inert environment. However, the electrical conductivity of the matrix AA8011 decreases with the percentage rise in the weight fraction of Si3N4 and resulted in high electrical resistivity of the composite developed. Also, the corrosion behavior of the developed composite was investigated by the potentiodynamic electrochemical process and gravimetric weight loss measurement to evaluate the corrosion rate and the resistance capacity in the simulated seawater environment. The corrosion rate was observed to decrease with Si3N4 inclusion, and the composite developed to inhibit or resist corrosion attack by blocking the site of corrosion initiation compared to the unreinforced AA8011. In all, the percentage of performance increases in relation to the efficiency of the nano Si3N4
