Aluminium ceramic composites with improved mechanical and chemical properties are essential and needed in aerospace and automotive application. The aluminium matrix composite reinforced with ceramic material of alumina (Al2O3) has good tribological properties. However, aluminium based ceramic composites require improvements in their lubrication properties. In this study an attempt is made in the development of a new material through powder metallurgy technique by the addition of molybdenum disulphide (MoS2), which acts as a solid lubricant. This molybdenum disulphide (MoS2) based solid lubricant has unique advantage that it can be used in vacuum space, but the same is not applicable in case of graphite. The microstructures, material combination, wear and friction properties were analysed by scanning electron microscopy, EDX, and pin-on-disc wear tester. The newly developed aluminium composite has significant improvements in tribological properties with a combination of 5% alumina (Al2O3) and 5% molybdenum disulphide (MoS2). The test reveals that sliding distance of 1000m and sliding speed of 1.5m/s with applied load of 5N result in minimum wear loss of 0.0102g and coefficient of friction as 0.117

A novel epoxy-based composites were fabricated by reinforcing pineapple/flax (PF) fibers and peanut oil cake (PCF) filler using the hand layup cum compression moulding technique and investigated its mechanical, water absorption and wear properties as a function of wt.% of PF fibers (20–40 wt.%) and PCF (1–3 wt.%). The XRD and FTIR results proved the presence of lignocellulosic nature in PCF. Mechanical test results showed significant enhancement in the properties after the addition of PCF. The maximum tensile, flexural and impact properties of 37. 89 MPa, 70.28 MPa and 96.99 J/m were observed in the composites having 20 wt.% of PF and 2 wt.% of PCF. Taguchi based optimization observed a lower specific wear rate (SWR) with 2 wt.% PCF/20 wt.% PF/5 N load and 1500 m sliding distance (SD) combination. The ANOVA results proved the significance of PCF, PF fiber, sliding distance, and load for SWR in this experimentation. The Taguchi optimized results observed a lower coefficient of friction (COF) in 2 wt.% PCF/20 wt.% PF/5N load/500 m SD combination. SEM results displayed surface deformations in the wear-tested composites.

The natural fibers of banana and coir from southern part of India was taken as the reinforcement material. Taguchi-based grey relational analysis was used for optimizing the factors influencing tensile, flexural and impact strength of banana/coir composites. Banana wt%, coir wt%, alkali treatment %, pressure and temperature during compression moulding process were the five major factors used for optimizing the mechanical strengths of epoxy-based composites. Grey relational analysis observed 20% banana/15% coir/3% alkali treatment/16 MPa pressure and 100°C temperature combination having the maximum mechanical properties in 16 trial combinations. The signal-to-noise ratio table of grey relational analysis showed combination with 20% banana /15% coir/5% alkali treatment/16 MPa pressure and 100°C temperature having optimized mechanical properties. Banana has the highest rank in improving the mechanical strength of natural composites, followed by coir, alkali treatment %, pressure and temperature. The graph between actual and artificial neural network computed results observed high correlation, proving that network topology of 5-3-1 with five factors, three hidden nodes and one response is the best method for analyzing the parameters in mechanical strength. Hybrid fiber composites with NaOH treatment showed hackles in interface with improved interfacial bonding during SEM analysis.