Friction and sliding wear characteristics study of submicron size cenosphere particles filled vinylester composites using Taguchi design of experimental technique

Abstract

The friction and wear behavior of vinylester composites filled with uniformly sized micron and submicron cenosphere particles is discussed in this paper. Three distinct uniform size cenosphere particles (2 µm, 900 nm and 400 nm in diameter) were prepared in the laboratory. The experiments have been carried on a pin on disc arrangement at normal room temperature conditions. In this study, a plan of experiments, based on the Taguchi design technique, has been used to acquire data in a controlled way. An orthogonal array L₂₇ (3¹³) and analysis of variance have been applied to investigate the influence of process parameters on the coefficient of friction and sliding wear behavior of these composites under dry sliding condition. It was found that the submicron size particulates as fillers contributed significantly to improve the wear resistance of the vinylester composites. Scanning electron microscopy has been used to investigate the interaction between filler and matrix and various wear mechanisms involved.

Keywords

Composite materials friction wear behavior tribology

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