Mechanical andthree-bodyabrasive wear behavior analysis of glass and basaltfiber-reinforcedepoxy composites

This research article presents the comparative investigation of physical, mechanical, and abrasive wear behavior of chopped glass and basalt fiber-reinforced epoxy composites. The composites were fabricated by hand lay-up technique. The fiber (glass and basalt) was varied in the range of 10 to 40 wt.% in the composite at an interval of 10 wt.% to find out the physical (density and void content), mechanical (tensile strength, flexural strength, and impact strength), and steady state abrasive wear rate, respectively. The Taguchi's design of experiment method was used for designing of experimental runs having input controlling variables like sliding distance, normal load, fiber content, and abrasive size. This study clearly demonstrated that with increase the fiber content, the density and void content of both fiber (glass and basalt) reinforced composite were increased. The basalt fiber-reinforced composites show lesser voids than glass fiber-reinforced composites. The tensile strength, flexural strength, and impact strength of both composites increased with increase the fiber content whereas glass fiber-reinforced composites show slightly lower tensile strength, flexural strength, and impact strength than basalt fiber-reinforced composites. However, as far as basalt fiber-reinforced composites show better wear resistance than glass fiber-reinforced composites.