Abrasive Wear Performance of Aluminium Modified Epoxy-Glass Fiber Composites

For a long time, Aluminum filled epoxies molds have been used in rapid tooling process. These molds are very economical when applied in manufacturing of low volume of plastic parts. To improve the thermal conductivity of the material, the metallic filler material is added to it and the glass fiber improves the wear resistance of the material. These two important parameters establish the life of composites. The present work reports on abrasive wear behavior of Aluminum modified epoxy and glass fiber composite with 5 wt.% and 10 wt.% of aluminum particles. Through pin on disc wear testing machine, we studied the wear behaviors of composites, and all these samples were fabricated by using hand layup process. Epoxy resin was used as matrix material which was reinforced with Glass fiber and Aluminum as filler. The composite with 5 wt.% and 10 wt.% of Al was cast with dimensions 100 × 100 × 6 mm. The specimens were machined to a size of 6 × 6 × 4 mm for abrasive testing. Abrasive tests were carried out for different grit paper sizes, i.e., 150, 320, 600 at different sliding distance, i.e., 20, 40, 60 m at different loads of 5, 10 and 15 N and at constant speed. The weight loss due to wear was calculated along with coefficient of friction. Hardness was found using Rockwell hardness machine. The SEM morphology of the worn out surface wear was analyzed to understand the wear mechanism. Results showed that the addition of Aluminum particles was beneficial for low abrasive conditions.