Effect of ceramic filler on tribological behavior of carbon fabric reinforced epoxy hybrid composite systems

Abstract

The innovation of light weight materials led to important newlinedevelopments in the fields engineering and medicine. Hence, this in turn newlineinitiated the development of composite materials to meet the global demands newlineof light weight, high performance and environmental friendly materials with newlineenhanced properties such as strength, stiffness, wear and corrosion resistance. newlineDue to their superior properties such as high strength to weight ratio, stiffness newlineto weight ratio, improved wear and corrosion resistance, fiber reinforced newlinepolymer composite materials are widely used for automotive, aerospace and newlinechemical industrial applications. Brakes, clutches, bearings, bushes, gears, newlinebolts and nuts, driving wheels are some of the tribological components used newlinein machineries. In recent times, fiber reinforced polymer matrix composites are normally used as functional parts of the machineries subject to the newlinetribological and mechanical loads. The addition of short fibers, continuous newlinefibers and ceramic particulates/fillers as a first and/or second reinforcement newlinewith the fiber reinforced polymer matrix composites as hybrid composites newlinesignificantly improve the mechanical and tribological properties of the newlinecomposites considerably. A comprehensive literature review was carried out to decide the newlinechoice of matrix and reinforcement materials. The present work aims at newlineinvestigating the role of ceramic filler, ie., silane-treated silicon carbide newlineparticulates on the tribological characteristics such as wear and friction and newlinemechanical characteristics such as hardness, tensile and flexural strength of newlinecarbon fabric reinforced epoxy matrix hybrid composites. newline