Erosion Wear Behaviour of Bio-Waste Reinforced Polymer Composites

Abstract

Composite material has been used in India for last three years. Indigenous production of unsaturated polyester resin has started in 1962 and of glass fibers in 1965, preparing the foundation for growth of composites in India. Polymer composites are gaining popularity in many industrial applications due to their higher specific strength and module.
In recent years the natural or bio-fiber composites have attracted substantial importance as a potential structural material. The attractive features of natural fibers like Jute, Sisal, Coir and banana have been their low cost, light weight, high specific modulus, renewability and biodegradability. Natural composites reinforced with such natural fibers have thus been a subject of intense study for low strength, low cost application in contrast to the synthetic fiber reinforced composite.

In the present work “Erosion wear behavior of bio-waste reinforced polymer composite” tests were performed to calculate the erosion rate of the composites with different reinforcements. The composites were fabricated using Epoxy and Polyester resin as polymer, chicken feather and coir dust as reinforcements. Composites without reinforcement and composite with 20% weight fraction reinforcements were made. They were then experimented in the erosion testing machine. The angle of impact was varied keeping other variables constant. Graphs were drawn showing the variation with the mass loss and the erosion rate. The addition of these reinforcements caused a decrease in the density which increases the strength to weight ratio. The erosion test results showed that mass loss and erosion rate increases with the angle of impact. The erosion rate and mass loss also increase with time but there is a trend of decreasing mass loss and erosion rate at higher time values in reinforced composites. Reinforcement addition decreases the erosion rate. Results showed a lesser erosion rate in coir dust reinforcement than in chicken feather. Also polyester matrix composites showed lesser erosion rate than epoxy matrix composites. Scanning electron microscopy analysis showed that at high angle of impact, high degree of cavitation and formation of cracks is observed in the composites.