Studies on Pre-treated Coir Dust Reinforced Polymer Composites

Abstract

The research carried out in this thesis broadly consists of three parts or sections: the first section has given the detailed description of the materials used and experiments conducted during the research. The second section delivers the methods of production of different coir dust reinforcements and their physical as well as microstructural characterization. The third section of this thesis reports the fabrication of various epoxy composites filled with coir dust of different forms and their physical, microstructural, mechanical and sliding wear characterization under different test conditions. Usually the performance of a novel composite is determined by its response under various physical, mechanical as well as tribological conditions to establish its stability as well as suitability in varied applications. Hence, in the current investigation, an abundance of property information has been provided for a set of epoxy-coir dust based composites by processing them through the traditional technique of hand-lay-up and by carrying out various characterizations to evaluate their physical, mechanical and tribological behaviour under controlled laboratory conditions. It is observed that, reinforcing modified coir dust in epoxy resin enhances the mechanical, physical and tribological properties, in comparison to the raw (untreated) coir-dust reinforced epoxy composites. FTIR results provide the information that, when coir dust is converted to some other form, there is a change in the functional groups and bond energy of the material. The FTIR peaks confirm the presence of several energy dense bonds and functional groups which enhances the properties of the resulting composites. XRD data gives the idea of presence/formation of various phases in the reinforced material and the fabricated composite. FTIR and XRD analysis of composites also provided genuine information regarding their functional groups as well as bonds. Microstructural properties of reinforcements and composites show the difference in particle distribution and adhesion between the filler and matrix respectively. Better tensile and flexural properties are observed from the modified coir dust reinforced composites in comparison to the untreated raw coir-dust reinforced epoxy composites. Successful analysis of control factors affecting the sliding wear rate is carried out using Taguchi’s L9 orthogonal array method. From the dry sliding wear test results, it is observed that the specific wear rate of the composites is mostly affected by the filler content. Various effective combination of control factors have been used for minimizing wear for the composites. Armed with moderate strength and improved hardness, this class of novel pretreated coir dust reinforced epoxy composites may possibly find applications in areas of use as insulation boards, brake pads, electrical panels, light weight aggregate, building boards, laminar panels, etc.