Three-body abrasive wear of short glass fibre polyester composite

Short E-glass fibre-reinforced polyester composites with and without filler have been studied for the low stress abrasive wear behaviour carried out u sing Rubber Wheel Abrasion Test (RWAT) apparatus. In the present investigat ion, angular silica sand particles of size ranging between 100-200 and 200- 300 mu m were used as dry and loose abrasives. The volume loss of the compo site during three-body abrasion has been measured as a function of sliding distance and other experimental parameters. It was found that the abrasive wear of the composite shows dependence on all the test parameters like appl ied load, sliding speed and abrasive particle size. The size of the abrasiv e particle and applied load tends to increase abrasive wear volume of the c omposites, whereas wear rate tends to decrease with increasing sliding velo city at constant applied load and particles of size ranging 200-300 mu m Se condly, higher weight fraction of glass fibres in the composite improves th e abrasive wear resistance because high energy is required to facilitate fa ilure in glass fibres. The concept of energy transfer has been applied to e xplain the mechanism of wear in the composites. Scanning electron microscop y was used to observe the worn surfaces and to understand the mechanism inv olved in the removal of the material. The observed microphotographs of worn surfaces were found to be in correlation with the proposed mechanism of ma terial removal in glass fibre composites. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. Al l rights reserved.