Wear behaviour of glass fiber reinforced polyester composites under dry friction and fluid film lubrication

Abstract

The use of composite materials, which are more economical and have better material properties, has become widespread in the industry lately. The glass fiber reinforced polyester composite materials constitute majority of composite materials produced in industry. Wear reduces working life of machine parts, affects their functions, and causes undesired deterioration, resulting in part separation over the contact surface. The machine parts produced from glass fiber reinforced polyester composite materials wear out because of exposure to dry friction and fluid film lubrication under different operating conditions. In this study, wear behaviours of glass fiber reinforced polyester composite materials under dry friction and fluid film lubrication conditions were investigated. The various results were obtained with this study. The wear resistances of samples in dry friction and fluid film lubrication conditions are like each other. The use of glass fiber, glass bead and plasticizer tensile additive in glass fiber reinforced polyester composite specimens is effective in improving the wear resistance of specimens.