Tribological Behavior of Glass/Sisal Fiber Reinforced Polyester Composites

Abstract

Utilization fiber reinforced composite materials has become quite common in various fields of applications like automobile, aerospace, industrial, structural and military. Such materials when reinforced in polymer matrix and turned into composite materials have a greater potential to act as a substitute for wood, metal and other traditionally used materials. Such demand has kindled the current day researchers to determine the tribological behavior of fiber reinforced polymeric materials (FRPs). Since the strength of the composite with natural and synthetic fibers was proven to be on par with the metallic materials, their usage has seen greater heights these days. Current chapter focuses in enunciating the tribological behavior of natural/synthetic fiber reinforced polyester composites. Specifically focus was given to individual sisal fiber, glass fiber and hybrid sisal/glass fibers reinforced polyester composites. Generally, sisal/glass composites were fabricated by compression moulding method with the fiber volume fraction varying in between 20 and 40%. Tribological tests were commonly performed by making the composite specimen to rub against a hard steel counter facing disc. From the general experimental results, composite materials reinforced with sisal fibers only showcased better tribological behavior which could be attributed to the thin tribo-layers formed between the composite and the counterfacing disc. Because of the presence of moisture content in the sisal fiber, the coefficient of friction values were observed to be minimum as the moisture presence instigated lubricating action. Besides the above fact, individual glass fiber reinforced composites portrayed minimal wear resistance due to the brittleness and high abrasive effect of glass fibers. In the current article, the influence of fiber content increase which led to increase in coefficient of friction along with the interrelationship between the wear parameters are discussed in detail.