This study aimed to investigate the effect of adding Titanium dioxide (TiO ₂ ) particles as a filler material in natural Ficus Benghalensis (FB) fiber-reinforced hybrid polymer composites on their dry sliding wear performance. The composites were fabricated using a hand stir technique, with varying weight fractions of Ficus Benghalensis fibers and TiO ₂ as filler material into an epoxy matrix. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis was conducted to examine the bonding strength. Various physico-mechanical properties of the composites were evaluated, including density, water absorption, tensile & flexural properties, and micro-hardness, under different weight fractions of fibers. The inclusion of 5 wt. % TiO ₂ particles raise the tensile strength of all composites by 6–10% compared to unfilled composites. The addition of 5 wt. % TiO ₂ particles and increasing FB fiber content in the composites enhance the micro-hardness of the raw epoxy. Specifically, the micro-hardness of the composites increases from 0.085 GPa to 0.274 GPa, 0.361 GPa, and 0.444 GPa for 2, 4, and 6 wt. % FB fibers, respectively. Sliding wear tests were also performed on the composites to assess their surface response, and the influence of the specific control parameters (sliding velocity, sliding distance, normal load, and fiber content) on the output performance was determined using Taguchi's L9 orthogonal array. The results showed that the addition of 5 wt. % TiO ₂ particles improved the tensile strength (6–10%), flexural strength (3–5%), and hardness (11–22%) of the composites compared to unfilled composites. The fiber content was found to have the greatest effect on the sliding wear rate, followed by the sliding velocity, with sliding distance and normal load having negligible influence. Overall, the study highlights the potential of TiO ₂ as a filler material in Ficus Benghalensis/epoxy matrix composites to improve their mechanical and wear properties.

In this work, bidirectional rice stubble fiber (RS), Glass fiber (GF), and Linz-Donawitz sludge (LDS) are used as reinforcement for the fabrication of epoxy (EP) based hybrid composite materials. The mechanical (tensile, flexural, compressive strength), and physical (density, void content) characteristics were evaluated as per ASTM standards. The tensile, compressive and flexural strength values of neat epoxy increased from 45 to 111 MPa, 22.5 to 58 MPa and 84 to 140 MPa respectively, with the addition of 6 % RS in EP-LDS-GF-RS composites. With the continuous addition of RS content, the density of the EP-LDS-GF composite gradually decreases, while void content increases gradually within 0.1 %, but both are higher than pure resin. Dry sliding wear tests are carried out on the composites to acquire the specific rate of wear (SW_rate). Taguchi’s design of experiment analysis is used to highlight the effect of various dependent parameters on SW_rate. Artificial Neural Network (ANN) tool is used to predict the combined effect of different input parameters on the SW_rate. From the SEM analysis, it is observed that material removal is significantly less near the region of filler content and hence the RS content is found to be the predominant control factor affecting the wear rate of the composites.

Integrated steel plants in general produce large amounts of solid wastes during iron and steel making process. LD sludge or Linz–Donawitz sludge (LDS) are the fine solid particles recovered after wet cleaning of the gas emerging from LD convertors during steel making. In general 8 kg Linz–Donawitz sludge is generated per one ton of crude steel production. This solid waste can have many valuable product-oriented applications if processed economically. The common reuse methods for Linz–Donawitz sludge are recovery of metal values, recycling in sinter plant, and production of value-added products. But its use as filler in polymer composites is not yet established. This work includes the processing and characterization study of epoxy resin filled with micro-sized Linz–Donawitz sludge. Mechanical properties of the composites are evaluated under standard test conditions. Sliding wear tests are conducted using Taguchi’s L₂₅ orthogonal arrays over a range of sliding velocities (36–315 cm/s), normal loads (5–25 N), sliding distances (500–2500 m), and Linz–Donawitz sludge contents (0–20 wt.%). A theoretical model is developed to estimate the wear rate of these composites under different test conditions. The results obtained from the proposed theoretical model are found to be in good agreement with the experimental values under similar test conditions. Taguchi’s analysis suggests that the composition of the composite and the sliding velocity are the most significant factors affecting the specific wear rate. This study further reveals that wear resistance of neat epoxy is enhanced by incorporation of micro-sized LD sludge particles.