Abrasive Wear Performance of Coir Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composite

Abstract

In the current era, there is a high demand to develop and explore new eco-materials for different engineering applications. Most engineering components are subjected to tri-biological loading conditions during the service. The current study investigates fibres reinforced polymer composites under abrasive wear loading conditions naturally. Coir fiber-reinforced epoxy composites was fabricated with different fibre lengths such as 5 mm, 10 mm and 15 mm. Surface treatment methods such as alkali treatment are performed to improve the efficiency of coir and epoxy resin. Normally applied loads of 5 N, 10 N, 15 N, 20 N and sliding Normally durations of 0, 2 min, 4 min, 6 min, 8 min, and 10 min are varied accordingly. Abrasive wear behaviour is performed on Block on Ring (BOR) at average room temperature with a sliding velocity of 1.9 m /s. wear behaviour values are tabulated for different fibre lengths, applied loads and Grades. Also, surface topography is examined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and damaged features are classified. The highest wear rate is observed from a 10 mm coir fibre length of Grade 600 at 10N normal applied load with 0.0695. While lowest wear rate can be seen from Grade 1200 of 15mm coir fibre length at 5N applied load of 0.012.

Keywords

• natural fibres
• composites material
• abrasive wear performance
• alkali treatment