Mechanical and abrasive wear behavior of carbon fabric reinforced epoxy composite with and without fly ash cenospheres

Carbon fabric reinforced epoxy and carbon fabric reinforced epoxy containing different weight fraction of silane-treated fly ash cenospheres filled composites were cast, sectioned, and subjected to three-body abrasive wear tests for evaluating the abrasive wear behavior. Mechanical characterization was done and a comparison was made between the different samples. Abrasive wear tests were performed on a rubber wheel abrasion tester under different loads, abrading distances using quartz and silica sand as abrasives. The results showed that both unfilled carbon fabric reinforced epoxy and fly ash cenospheres filled carbon fabric reinforced epoxy composites exhibit differing magnitudes of wear volume loss, it being highest for unfilled carbon fabric reinforced epoxy composite. The data trends point to the fact that the wear volume and specific wear rate decreases with increasing fly ash cenospheres loading in carbon fabric reinforced epoxy composites. It was found that silane-treated fly ash cenospheres could effectively reduce the wear rate especially under silica sand as abrasives. To explain these differences, the worn surfaces were examined using scanning electron microscope and the features thus observed were correlated with the selected mechanical properties.