Many different families of polymers are used in industries and engineering applications. The demands for studying the tribological behaviour of polymers and their composites are recently increased. This article briefs the most recent studies on the tribological behaviour of polymeric materials based on synthetic fibres. It reviews several factors which control the wear and frictional characteristics of such materials, that is, additives, fibres, interfacial adhesion, tribology environment, operating parameters, and composite geometry. In addition to that, new bioreinforcement (fibre) is introduced associated with preliminary results. The results showed that there is high potential of replacing the conventional reinforcement with the bioones.
In the current work, kenaf fibers reinforced epoxy (KFRE) composite was developed. Adhesive wear and frictional characteristics of KFRE were investigated under wet contact conditions at different fiber orientations, considering different applied loads (50–200 N) and sliding distances (0–30 km). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to observe the damages on the worn surfaces. The results revealed that fiber orientation plays a main role in determining the wear and frictional performance of the composites. Kenaf fibers, in normal orientation (N-O), enhanced the wear performance of the composite by about 35%–57%. It appears that the damages on the surface of the composite (N-O) were less than the other orientations (P-O and AP-O). Compared to previous work, KFRE has good potential of replacing glass fibers in tribological applications.
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