Investigation and optimization of wear properties of flax fiber reinforced Delrin polymer composite

Abstract

Nowadays, the significance of natural fiber hybrid composites shows increasing trend in the automobile industry. New high-performance polymer materials can be produced from natural fibers which are inexpensive, renewable, eco-friendly, and biodegradable. Because of renewability, natural fibers can be an alternative source to synthetic fibers as a reinforcing agent. This research work looks at flax fiber natural composite material reinforced with matrix material. For a wide range of applications, delrin offers viable replacements for metal composites. In the present work, composites were prepared by injection molding and investigated. The composite constituents were chopped natural flax fiber as reinforcement (5%, 10%, 15% and 20%) and delrin as the matrix (95%, 90%, 85% and 80%). Pin-on-disc (POD) wear tests were conducted to reveal wear strength of the composite under various POD parameters, optimization is done through the hybrid grey relational and principal component analysis approach. The results showed that composite material (Flax+Delrin) shows improved wear strength compared to the non-reinforced material.