Investigation of the microhardness and solid particle erosive wear of organoclay-filled glass-epoxy nanocomposites and optimisation using Taguchi method

Abstract

ABSTRACT This research concentrates on examining the microhardness and erosive wear resistance of the Epoxy-glass-clay nanocomposites. The microhardness of the Epoxy-glass composites filled with organic-modified Montmorillonite (OMMT) nanoclay particles is optimised to the maximum. The control factors selected for evaluation of microhardness are nanoclay wt. % (N), Glass fibre Vol. % (G), and Orientation angle of the fibres (O). At the optimised composition of the composite corresponding to the maximum hardness, the erosive wear studies were conducted at varying angle of impingement (θ), air stream pressure (P), incubation time (t), stand-off distance (d). The L9 orthogonal array was selected for microhardness testing, and the L27 orthogonal array was selected for solid particle erosive wear testing. The epoxy-glass-clay nanocomposites (EGCN) were fabricated using the hand lay-up method and tested as per ASTM standards. Anova analysis is used to find the effect each parameter on the results and the optimum conditions. The improvement in hardness and erosion resistance at the optimum set of parameters compared to the pristine epoxy and 65% glass-epoxy composite without nanoclay is observed to be 130%, 57%, 22%, 31%. The effects of parameters were explained with the support of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) of the eroded surfaces.