Solid Particle Erosion of Fiber Reinforced Plastics

Abstract

Solid particle erosion tests were carried out to study the effect of matrix materials, reinforcement fibers, interface strength between matrix material and fibers, im pact angle, and particle velocity on the solid particle erosion behavior of fiber reinforced plastics. In the present study, special attention was focused on the effect of the interface strength between matrix material and fibers, which has not been investigated in a lot of previous works related with the erosion of composite materials. FRPs with treated or un treated fiber surfaces were used as test materials to study the effect of interface strength be tween matrix material and fibers. It is found from the erosion tests that the erosion rate is larger in a FRP than in a neat resin, and that the erosion rate of a FRP decreases with the increase of the interface strength between matrix material and fibers.