Silicon Carbide Filled Polymer Composite for Erosive Environment Application: A Comparative Analysis of Experimental and FE Simulation Results

Abstract

Polymer composites form important class of engineering materials and are commonly used in mechanical components. Because of their high strength-to-weight and stiffness-to-weight ratios, they are extensively used for a wide variety of structural applications as in aerospace, automotive, gear pumps handling industrial fluids, cams, power plants, bushes, bearing cages and chemical industries. Whereas, wear performance in nonlubricated condition is a key factor for the material selection and fabrication procedure (Hutchings, 1992). Glass fiber reinforced polymer composites traditionally show poor wear resistance due to the brittle nature of the fibers. Many researchers have been reported on the effect of fiber, filler and matrix materials so far in the literature regarding economical and functional benefits to both consumers and industrial manufacturers (Budinski, 1997; Chand et al., 2000; Tripathy and Furey, 1993). The addition of hard particulate ceramic fillers not only improves the wear performance of the particulate filled polymer composites but also reduce the cost of the composites. In order to obtain improve wear performances many researchers modified polymers using different fillers (Briscoe et al. 1974; Tanaka 1986; Bahadur et al, 1994; Bahadur and Tabor,1985; Kishore et al. 2000; Wang et al. 2003). Silicon carbide (SiC) is one such ceramic material that has great potential for overcoming the current inadequacies of abrasive products due to its inherent characteristic of being chemically inert and consequently resistant to improve mechanical and wear resistance material. It has an excellent abrasive nature and has been produced for grinding wheels and other for more than hundred years. Now-a-days the material has been developed into a high quality technical grade ceramic with very good mechanical properties. It is used in abrasives, ceramics, refractories, and other high-performance applications. Silicon carbide is composed of tetrahedra of carbon and silicon atoms with strong bonds in the crystal lattice. This produces a very strong material and not attacked by any acids or alkalis or molten salts up to 800°C (Nordsletten et al. 1996). To this end, the present research work is undertaken to develop a new class of glass fiber based polymer composite filled with SiC particulate and study the effect of various