Natural fibers are widely used for reinforcement in polymer composite materials and proved to be effectively replacing synthetic fiber reinforced polymer composites to some extent in applications like domestic, automotive and lower end aerospace parts. The natural fiber reinforced composites are environment friendly, have high strength to weight ratio as well as specific strengths comparable with synthetic glass fiber reinforced composites. In the present work, hybrid epoxy composites were fabricated using calotropis procera and glass fibers as reinforcement by hand lay-up method. The fibre reinforcement in epoxy matrix was maintained at 20 wt%. In 20 wt% reinforcement of fibre, the content of calotropis procera and glass fibre were varied from 5, 10, 15 and 20 wt%. The dry sliding wear test as per ASTM G99 and three body abrasive wear test as per ASTM G65 were conducted to find the tribological properties by varying speed, load, distance and abrasive size. The hybrid composite having 5 wt% calotropis procera and 15 wt% glass fibre showed less wear loss in hybrid composites both in sliding wear test as well as in abrasive wear test which is comparable with 20 wt% glass fibre reinforced epoxy composite which marked very low wear loss. The SEM analysis was carried out to study the worn out surfaces of dry sliding wear test and three body abrasive wear test specimens.
Abrasive Wear Characteristics of CFRP in Vibratory Environment. Wear Characteristics under Three-Body Conditions.
