Ferrous Metal Matrix Composites Status Scope and Challenges

TL;DR

This paper reviews the current status, challenges, and future prospects of ferrous metal matrix composites, highlighting their potential advantages and the need for further research to overcome existing limitations.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of FMMCs, including fabrication methods, challenges, and the potential for cost reduction using industrial waste reinforcements.

Findings

FMMCs are less researched than NFMMCs but show promising future growth.

FMMCs offer higher strength and wear resistance at lower costs.

Challenges include oxidation and weight issues that need further investigation.

Abstract

The present paper is an effort to culminate the status, scopes and challenges in the development of ferrous metal matrix composites (FMMCs). The FMMCs are old but less in use than the non-ferrous metal matrix composites (NFMMCs), as far as literature and actual applications are concerned. Therefore, this stimulates the exploration of the reasons behind the scarcity of literature and field applications of the FMMCs, which must be investigated scientifically. The powder metallurgy route is the most used process for fabricating iron and steel based FMMCs by reinforcing particulates. At the same time, the in-situ method has been used for the fabrication and cast iron-based FMMCs. The main characteristics being considered during the designing and fabrication of FMMCs are wear resistance and improved specific mechanical properties. To fabricate cheaper and eco-friendly FMMCs, traditionally used costly reinforcements such as SiC, WC, TiC, SiO2, TiO2, TiB2 are required to be replaced by inexpensive industrial wastes like red-mud, fly-ashes and grinding swarf. The data extracted from the web of science exhibited that the FMMCs have been researched less than the NFMMCs. The increasing number of research papers on FMMCs indicates a bright future. FMMCs are going to be a favourite topic among researchers and manufacturers. Higher strengths, wear resistance, dimensional stability at elevated temperatures, and, most importantly, the lower cost will put forward the FMMCs as a stiff competitor of NFMMCs. In developing and mass production of FMMCs for field applications, challenges like oxidation and higher weight still require special research efforts.