In this study, hand lay-up technique was used to fabricate epoxy composite based on jute fibre mates. Three different orientations wew considered in the fabrication of the composites. The characteristics of the material removal from the surface of the composite due to sliding condition was investigated. Different applied loads were considered to gain different shear force in the interface. Scanning electron microscopy was used to examine the influence of the shear force on the interaction between the fibre and the resin after sliding at different orientations. The outcome would be significantly contributed to the knowledge of composite science and tribology. The main findings of the work was that fibre orientation has very significant influence of the wear and frictional performance of jute fibre reinforced epoxy composites. Sliding distance controls the running in and steady state wear behaviour of the composites especially when the composite was tested in parallel and antiparallel orientations. Wear resistance of the composites found to be better in the antiparallel orientation followed by parallel and then normal. Jute fibres gave very promising results to replace glass fibres for the same composites at the same operating conditions.
Epoxy resin is one of the most widely used thermoset polymers in high-performance composite materials for lightweight applications. However, epoxy has a high coefficient of friction, which limits its tribological applications. In this study, the effect was investigated of different weight fractions of solid lubricant graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs), ranging from 0 to 4.5 wt%, on mechanical and adhesive wear performance of epoxy. Adhesive wear tests covered mild and severe wear regimes. The correlation of tribological and mechanical properties was studied as well. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to observe the failure mechanisms for both tribological and mechanical samples after each test. The results revealed that the addition of GNPs to the epoxy improved its stiffness and hardness but reduced its fracture strength and toughness. Adhesive wear performance exhibited high efficiency with GNP additions and showed reductions in the specific wear rate, the coefficient of friction, and the induced interface temperature by 76%, 37%, and 22%, respectively. A fatigue wear mechanism was predominant as the applied load increased. Most importantly, severe wear signs occurred when the interface temperature reached the heat distortion temperature of the epoxy. The tribological, and mechanical properties showed only a weak correlation to each other. The addition of GNPs to epoxy by less than 4.5 wt% was highly efficient to improve the wear performance while maintaining the fracture strength and toughness. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis shows no chemical interaction between the epoxy matrix with GNPs, which implies its physical interaction.
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