Volume 18, Issue 6, 2009

SLIDING WEAR BEHAVIOUR OF AN EPOXY SYSTEM REINFORCED WITH PARTICULATE FLY ASH FILLER

P. Barpanda^1,2,*, S.M. Kulkarni³, Kishore<sup>4

1</sup> Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, 08854-8065, USA
² Laboratoire de Réactivité et Chimie des Solides, Université de Picardie Jules Verne, CNRS UMR 6007, Amiens, 80039, France
³ Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Suratkhal, 575025, India
⁴ Polymer Composites Laboratory, Department of Materials Engineering, Centre for Advanced Studies, Indian Insti¬tute of Science, Bangalore, 560012, India

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed Tel: 33 (0)3 22 82 7604, Fax: 33 (0)3 22 82 7590, E-mail: prabeer.barpanda@u-picardie.fr

Received 4 July 2009; accepted 29 October 2009

ABSTRACT
Neat epoxy and epoxy containing different volume fraction of as received fly ash particulate filler bearing composites were cast, sectioned and subjected to pin-on-disk tests for evaluating the wear behaviour. The wear tests were conducted for 1 kilometre distance under 1 kg load for sliding velocity ranging from 1 to 5 m/s. The results showed that both neat epoxy and fly ash bearing composites exhibit differing magnitudes of wear loss, it being highest for unreinforced neat epoxy system. The data trends point to the fact that wears loss decreases with increasing content of fly ash in composites. To explain these differences, the wear surfaces were examined under scanning electron microscope and the features thus observed were correlated with the mechanical data.

KEYWORDS: Sliding wear, pin-on-disk test, polymer-matrix composites, epoxy, fly ash, scanning electron mi-croscopy