Influence of Filler Content on Tribological Behavior of Cenopshere Flyash Filled Bamboo Fiber Reinforced Composites

Abstract

ABSTRACT Present work incorporates the fabrication of short bamboo fiber reinforced polymer composites with Cenosphere fly ash as a filler. Alkali treatment was given to the short bamboo fibers and the composite samples were fabricated using both the untreated and alkali treated fibers. Erosion wear behavior has been studied for both groups of composites. Air jet type test rig has been used for the erosion study following the design of experiments approach using Taguchi’s orthogonal arrays. Optimal parameter settings have been identified using the Taguchi approach to minimize the erosion rate. Influence of the input parameters (Impact angle, Impact velocity, Filler Content) has been investigated on the erosion resistance of composites and the variance has been studied using ANOVA. Surface morphology has also been studied to see the impact of erosion. Results have indicated that the wear rate of both category of composites is significantly affected by the size of erodent, impact velocity, impingement angle as well as the filler content. A major improvement in the erosion behavior of the samples have been reported with the addition of Cenosphere.