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In this study, solid particle erosion (SPE) wear behavior of bamboo fiber‐reinforced epoxy composite with cenosphere filler was investigated. Cenosphere is an industrial waste of thermal power plants which is produced during burning of pulverized coals. The present composites consisting of varying weight percentage of fibers and cenosphere fillers were prepared by hand lay‐up technique. The erosion wear rates of these composites have been studied with varying impact velocities and impingement angles. The study reveals that addition of cenosphere filler to the bamboo–epoxy composite reduces its erosion wear rate. Morphologies of the eroded surface of composite samples were inspected by a scanning electron microscope to discuss the behavior of erosion wear. Both bamboo–epoxy composite with and without cenosphere filler show semiductile erosion wear behavior with maximum erosion rate at an impingement angle of 60°.

This paper deals with the evaluation of water absorption properties of natural fibre composites consisting of bamboo fibre as reinforcement, epoxy as matrix and cenosphere as particulate filler at different environmental conditions. Hand lay-up technique is used to fabricate the composites with varying number of layers of bamboo fibre and cenosphere filler content. Water absorption kinetics of the composites is presented in this paper. It is observed that the rate of water absorption depends on the fibre content as well as filler content. Addition of filler in the layered bamboo–epoxy composite decreases the moisture absorption capacity and maximum reduction is observed to be 21% and 32% for distilled and sea water conditions, respectively, in seven-layered composite with 3.0 wt% filler.

A nine-noded isoparametric plate-bending element has been used for the analysis of free undamped vibration of isotropic and fiber reinforced laminated composite plates. The effect of shear deformation has been incorporated in the formulation by considering the first-order shear deformation theory for the analysis. An effective mass lumping scheme with rotary inertia has been recommended. Two types of mass lumping schemes have been formed. In one lumping scheme rotary inertia has also been introduced. Numerical examples of isotropic and composite rectangular plates having different fiber orientations angles, thickness ratios, and aspect ratio have been solved. Examples of plates having internal cutout and uniformly distributed mass on the plates have also been studied. The results obtained have been compared with the available published literature. The present results are very close to the analytical solutions. Few examples have been presented as new results.

A finite element model based on an improved higher order zigzag plate theory developed by the authors is refined in this study and applied to bending and vibration response of soft core sandwich plates. The theory satisfies interlayer transverse shear stress continuity including transverse shear stress free condition at the plate top and bottom surfaces and transverse normal compressibility of the core. The in-plane displacements vary cubically through the entire thickness, while transverse displacement is assumed to vary quadratically within the core. In order to have a better computational benefit, a C0 finite element formulation is adopted. This is refined through satisfaction of certain constrains variationally using a penalty function approach. The performance of the model is demonstrated by comparing the present results with 3D elasticity solutions and other available results.

Cenosphere is a ceramic-rich industrial waste produced during burning of coal in thermal power plants. This study deals with the effect of cenosphere as particulate filler on mechanical behaviour of natural fibre composites. The natural fibre composite consists of bamboo fibre as reinforcement and epoxy as matrix. The bamboo fibre is treated with alkali to improve its surface properties. The conventional hand lay-up technique is used to prepare different composite specimens. Twenty numbers of different composite specimens are prepared with varying number of laminae and filler content. The samples are analysed for their mechanical properties to establish the effect of varying filler content and the number of laminae. It is found that the mechanical properties are significantly influenced by addition of this waste-based ceramic filler.

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