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The three-body abrasive wear behaviour of carbon fabric reinforced epoxy (C-E) composites has been evaluated by the addition of graphite (G) particles as a secondary reinforcement. Three-body abrasive wear test were conducted using dry sand rubber wheel abrasion tester as per ASTM G-65 with three process parameters load, abrading distance and filler content. To assess the abrasive wear behaviour of particulate filled C-E composites satisfying multiple performance measure, grey-based Taguchi approach has been adopted. The experiments were designed according to Taguchi's orthogonal array (L 27 ). The grey relational analysis was applied to convert a multi response process optimization to a single response. Using analysis of variance, significant contributions of process parameters have been determined. The results indicate that the addition of graphite particles into C-E composite increased the wear resistance considerably. It was observed that highest wear resistance of C-E composite was achieved with incorporation of 10 wt% of graphite filler. Results indicate that the filler content and grit size of abrasive paper were found to be the most significant factor which has influence on the abrasive wear of C-E composite. The worn surface features were examined through scanning electron microscope to probe the wear mechanism.

In the present work, the influence of organo-modified montmorillonite loading on the solid particle erosion of carbon fabric-reinforced epoxy composites was investigated. The development of a multi-component composite system consisting of thermoset epoxy resin reinforced with carbon fabric and organo-modified montmorillonite nanoparticles, the erosion behaviour was studied for various erodent size, impact velocity, loading of organo-modified montmorillonite and for different impingement angles. For this purpose, erosion test rig and the design of experiments approach utilizing Taguchi’s orthogonal arrays were used. Of all the above factors, the erodent size has the greatest effect on the reduction in the erosion wear rate. The erosion wear rate variation was found to be in the range of 1.33 × 10−4–48.02 × 10−4 g/g. The lowest erosion wear rate was found in the case of unfilled carbon fabric-reinforced epoxy composite under erodent size of 600 µm, impact velocity of 30 m/s and erodent time of 1 min. Further, the results showed strong dependence of the erosive wear on the erodent size. The organo-modified montmorillonite filled carbon fabric-reinforced epoxy composite showed brittle erosion behaviour with maximum weight loss at 75° impingement angle. Analysis of variance was performed on the measured data and signal to noise ratios were found. The morphology of eroded surfaces was examined using scanning electron microscopy and damage mechanisms were discussed.