Microwave fabrication of aluminium composites has emerged as a novel and trending technique in the current industrial landscape due to its efficiency and energy-saving potential. In this study, Al-kaolin composites were fabricated using microwave energy techniques, focusing on predictive modelling of the microwave-assisted Al-kaolin composite’s wear rate and coefficient of friction (COF). The fabricated composites were evaluated for hardness, wear rate, and coefficient of friction (COF) under varying parameters. It was observed that 4 wt% kaolin is the optimal reinforcement fraction, resulting in a 34% improvement in tensile strength, while hardness showed a consistent increase up to 4 wt% Kaolin, reaching a maximum value of 96 RHC. Additionally, wear rate and COF exhibited a decreasing trend with increasing kaolin content, indicating enhanced tribological performance. The lowest wear rate of 3.2 × 10⁻⁴ mm³/Nm and COF of 0.42 were observed for the 4 wt% Kaolin composite, demonstrating improved wear resistance. To further understand and predict the behaviour of the composites, a systematic dataset was collected, and various machine learning (ML) models were trained and tested for predictive modelling of wear rate and COF. Among the trained models, XGBoost demonstrated the highest predictive accuracy, achieving 94.33% for wear rate and 94.62% for COF. A feature importance analysis revealed that the standard of distance (Sod) was the most influential parameter affecting these outputs.

The effect of naturally available low-cost kaoline clay reinforcement on the mechanical and tribological characteristics of Al-10%SiC-X%kaoline (X = 0, 2, 4, 6, 8) hybrid metal matrix composite fabricated using Plasma Spark Sintering technique was investigated. Hardness and Compression test was conducted to obtain the mechanical properties. Results reveal that maximum hardness of 159 VHN and compression strength of 279 MPa was obtained for Al-10%SiC-4%Kailine composite samples. Incorporation of kaoline reinforcement more than 4% leads to the formation of agglomerations, which was identified by SEM analysis and the corresponding Al2Cu peak for this agglomeration was conformed through XRD patterns. Wear test was conducted for Al-10%SiC-4%kaoline composite and the effect of process parameters such as applied load, sliding distance and sliding velocity were optimised for the responses like wear rate and C.O.F. ANOVA analysis showed that the most significant process parameters for wear rate are applied load and sliding velocity with their % of the contribution was 54.99 % and 31.93 %, respectively. For C.O.F., Load was influencing most fallowed by sliding velocity and their respective % contribution was 62.43 % and 33.40 %. The optimised values obtained based on this study was 0.00192 mm(3)/m and 0.28 respectively for wear rate and C.O.F.

In the present work Al- 10% B₄C- X% Kaoline (X = 0, 2, 4, 6, 8) hybrid metal matrix composite (HMMC) was fabricated through powder metallurgy technique. Physical and mechanical properties like density, Hardness, Porosity, Ultimate tensile strength (U.T.S) and Impact energy were studied for the fabricated composite samples. Results concluded that there was a 91.93% increment in hardness and 75% increment in U.T.S of the fabricated samples was observed for Al-10%B₄C-4%Kaoline HMMC. However, incorporation of kaoline reinforcement beyond 4% leads to the formation of agglomerates in the composites reducing the U.T.S from 238 MPa to 186 MPa and hardness from 119 VHN to 101 VHN. The fabricated composite specimens were characterised using an X-ray Diffractometer (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS). The XRD patterns reveal the presence of Aluminium, B₄C and kaoline particles. In addition to this, the presence of intermetallic phases was observed for Al-10%B₄C-6% Kaoline and Al-10%B₄C-8% kaoline HMMC. Uniform distribution of reinforcements and formation of agglomerations for 6% and 8% kaoline reinforcements was confirmed by SEM and their respective EDS mapping. Results showed that the Al-10 % B₄C- 4% Kaoline has superior mechanical properties compared to monolithic aluminium