Studies on dry sliding wear behaviour of hybrid composites

Polymers and their composites are emerging as viable alternative products to metal-based and alloy based ones in many common and advanced engineering applications. The feature that makes polymer composites so promising in industrial applications is the possibility of tailoring their properties with special fillers. The comparative performance of carbon-epoxy composite with influence of Cenosphere filler were experimentally investigated under varying applied load, sliding distance and sliding velocity by using a pin-on-disc apparatus. For increased applied load situation, higher weight loss was recorded. Addition of Cenosphere in carbon-epoxy composite exhibits lower weight loss, whose value drops as the percentage of Cenosphere increases in the composite. A plan of experiments, based on the techniques of Taguchi, was performed to acquire data in a controlled way. An orthogonal array and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were employed to investigate the influence of process parameters on the wear of these composites. The results showed that the inclusion of Cenosphere as filler materials in carbon epoxy composites will increase the wear resistance of the composite greatly. SEM analysis has been made to identify the phenomenon of wear as a function of applied load, sliding distance and sliding velocity.