Friction and wear behavior of epoxy composite filled with industrial wastes

Abstract Waste utilization is an important alternative to reduce disposal costs, potential environmental pollution problems, decrement of natural resources and production costs. In this study, it is aimed to create a different usage area for the slag wastes that cause problems to the environment and factories. For this purpose, the usability of slags (blast furnace, ferrochromium and converter) as a reinforcement material in epoxy composites were investigated for tribological applications. Epoxy matrix composites were produced by adding 30% of reinforcements with 61 μm size. The epoxy composites were tested against a stationary Al2O3 ball in a ball-on-disk tester under the loads of 10, 15 and 20 N, at a sliding distance of 300 m and a rotational speed of 300 rpm. Wear mechanisms were also investigated by Scanning Electron Microscopy. Mostly, the slag fillers showed higher wear resistance than the Al2O3 reinforced composites. Among the slag fillers, the blast furnace exhibited superior tribological performance. While Al2O3 and blast furnace slag reinforced composites showed plastic deformation due to fatigue, transverse cracks and displaced reinforcement particles were observed in ferrochromium slag and converter slag reinforced composites. Increasing the applied load caused acceleration in wear rate. Thermal conductivity was increased by particle addition, which contributed to the improvement of the wear performance. This study provided that industrial wastes can be used as reinforcement material in composites and thus a cleaner environment can be obtained.