Physico-mechanical and Taguchi-designed sliding wear properties of Himalayan agave fiber reinforced polyester composite

Abstract

This research paper addresses the experimental investigation on physico-mechanical and Taguchi-designed sliding wear properties of novel Himalayan agave fiber (fiber's sizes of 3mm, 5mm, 7mm and fiber's loading of 5wt.%, 7wt.% and 9wt.%) reinforced polyester composites. The tensile and impact strength were observed to increase with increase in fiber's size and loading delivering maximum tensile of 25.43MPa and impact strength of 45.55J/m2 at fiber's size and loading of 7mm and 9wt.% respectively. The maximum flexural strength (47.02MPa) and hardness (48.01Hv) were achieved with polyester composites having 7wt.% fiber loading at different fiber's size of 7mm and 5mm respectively. The sliding wear rate of composites was studied at different sliding velocity (1.5–4.5m/s), fiber's size (0–7mm), normal load (10–25N), and sliding distance (500–2000m) using Taguchi technique. The study demonstrated that the sliding velocity, fiber's size, sliding distance and normal load are the significant control parameters in descending order affecting the sliding wear rate.