Abrasive particle-induced erosive wear of polymeric engineering components is a major industrial issue. The research of solid particle erosion characteristics of polymeric composites becomes essential due to operational needs in dusty conditions. Nonwovens are now employed in industrial applications for polymeric composites. Nonwoven products are made from a wide range of raw materials, ranging from synthetic to natural fibers. This work finding the effect of nonwoven cotton fiber (5, 10, and 15 wt.%) loading on the physical, mechanical, and erosion wear of fixed wooden dust (4 wt.%) filled hybrid epoxy composites. Experimental results reveal improved impact strength, hardness, and compressive and tensile strength with an increment of fiber loading from 5–15 wt.%. The density of the composites was found to increase, whereas void content decreases with an increase in cotton fiber. The erosion wear of the composites has been studied using an L27 orthogonal array to assess the effects of various parameters such as fiber loading, erodent size, impact velocity, impingement angle, and stand-off distance. The erosion wear increased with impact velocity and remained highest for 60° of impingement angle. The most significant parameter affecting the erosion wear was determined as impact velocity followed by impingement angle. Surface morphologies of eroded samples reveal the fiber pull-out, and fiber breakage was the prominent phenomenon for the erosion wear of the evaluated composites.
Composites were fabricated using viscose fiber-based needlepunched nonwoven fabric mat as a reinforcement material, with varying mass per unit area of fabric mat (VS200 gsm, VS400 gsm and VS600 gsm) and varying fabric mat weight percentage. The effect of varying mass per unit area of fabric mat and weight percentage loading of these different fabric mats were reported on mechanical, physical and visco-elastic properties of needlepunched nonwoven reinforced epoxy composites. The mechanical and physical characterization was analyzed experimentally, and thermo-mechanical stability studied via the dynamic mechanical analysis, to measure the storage modulus (E′), loss modulus (E″) and damping factor (tan δ) of nonwoven fabric mat-reinforced composites over a temperature range of 20℃ to 200℃ at 1 Hz frequency. The storage modulus (E′) diminish with increase in temperature, with a significant fall in the temperature range 50–80℃ for all the composites. Loss modulus (E″) shows the variation from 60 MPa to 150 MPa, whereas glass transient temperature ( Tg) from the tan δ peaks, varies from 70℃ to 85℃. The comparative analysis shows that with the incorporation of nonwoven fabric mat weight percentage in composites, all mechanical and physical properties of composites improve significantly. These mechanical and physical properties are also improving with raise in mass per unit area of fabric mats from VS200 gsm to VS600 gsm.
19 August 2011 in Journal of Applied Polymer Science