An Assessment of Erosion Wear Response of SiC Filled Epoxy Composites Reinforced with Glass and Bamboo Fibers

Abstract

The present work describes the processing and studies the erosion wear characteristics of bamboo fiber reinforced epoxy composites filled with SiC particulate. The mechanical properties of these composites are evaluated and are then compared with those of a similar set of SiC filled glass-epoxy composites. The solid particle erosion characteristics of the bamboo-epoxy composites have also been studied and the experimental results are compared with the reported erosion test results on glassepoxy composites under similar test conditions by Biswas and Satapathy (2009). The influence of particulate filler on the erosion wear response of composites has been critically analyzed using Taguchi experimental design. This systematic experimentation has led to determination of significant process parameters and material variables that predominantly influence the wear rate of the particulate filled glass-epoxy and bamboo-epoxy composites. The comparative study indicates that although the bamboo based composites exhibit relatively inferior mechanical properties, their erosion wear performance is better than that of the glass-epoxy composites.

Effect of Different Parameters on Mechanical and Erosion Wear Behavior of Bamboo Fiber Reinforced Epoxy Composites

“…In contrast, the erosion rate increased appreciably on further increasing the erodent size from 175 μm to 275 μm, and on further increasing the erodent size from 275 μm to 350 μm, the erosion rate starts decreasing. As reported by Biswas and Satapathy [38,39] and Patnaik et al [40], for glass fiber-reinforced polymer composites, with the increase in erodent size, the erosion rate increases gradually irrespective of fiber loading. It is also observed that the composite with 40 wt% of bamboo fiber loading shows most erosion resistant closely followed by the composite with 20 wt%, 30 wt%, and 10 wt% of bamboo fiber loading.…”

Environmental Degradability of Nigerian Long Bamboo Fibre-Reinforced Polymer Composite (NLBFRPC)

“…Constituents of the composite retain their individual physical and chemical properties significantly whereas together they combine to make up the qualities that one constituent cannot produce while alone. Reinforcements have been made of inorganics (synthetic fibre) such as glass, carbon and amid [3].…”