Investigation on the Influence of Fiber Orientation on Sliding Wear and Frictional Characteristics of Glass-Carbon and Twaron-Carbon Hybrid Composites

Abstract

An experimental investigation was carried out to study the influence of fiber orientation on the wear and frictional characteristics of hybrid-epoxy composites. Unidirectional and bidirectional glass-carbon epoxy(GC) and Twaron-carbon epoxy (TC) composites were prepared using conventional wet hand-layup technique followed by vacuum bagging using an amine and an anhydride based curing agents. Wear and frictional tests were carried out with configuration of a pin on a rotating disc at normal loads of 30, 50 and 80N under dry sliding speed of 3 and 8 m/s. It was found that hybrid composites containing bidirectional yarn systems have better wear resistance, lower wear loss and higher frictional coefficient compared to the unidirectional hybrid composites independent of the load, speed, nature of the fibers and hardener. TC composites were also found to exhibit better mechanical properties compared to GC composites. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) examination revealed that the fiber orientation has considerable effect on the wear, friction properties of hybrid composites and failure mode initiation.