Three body abrasion wear resistance of cenosphere particle‐reinforced syntactic foams developed using molding method

Abstract

AbstractThis study aims to investigate the factors that affect the abrasion of cenosphere‐reinforced syntactic foams and assess their three‐body wear behavior using Taguchi's design of experiments (L16 Orthogonal array). Cenospheres were dispersed into an epoxy matrix to create syntactic foam samples. The findings show that the syntactic foams' rate of wear was influenced by the cenosphere concentration. Reduced wear rate was obtained with a greater cenosphere concentration. Duration and applied force both had an impact on how quickly the syntactic foams wore out. This research can help in the creation of wear‐resistant composite materials for a variety of applications by illuminating the variables influencing the abrasion of cenosphere‐reinforced syntactic foams. The findings demonstrate that sp. rate of wear is minimum (0.124 × 10−8 m3/Nm) at the factor combination of 60% loading of filler, 40 N of applied load and duration of 15 min which can be indicated as A4B4C2. This is 10.56 times better than the combination A1B4C4 which exhibits an sp. wear rate of 1.31 × 10−8 m3/Nm. These lightweight syntactic foams have the potential to be used as tribo‐materials in friction applications, such as composite brake pads.