Tribological properties of dry sliding wear behaviour for GFRP composite made by hand layup, VARTM and RTM techniques using taguchi and ANOVA approach

ABSTRACT

The surface damage wear mechanism of GFRP is complex in real time applications due to the anisotropic nature of the material. The main objective of this study is to identify the parameters that affect the wear behavior of GFRP composite made by Hand Layup, VARTMand RTM technique. Most GFRP research has focused on fiber/matrix types, but this current research addresses on critical research gap i.e., fiber volume fraction Vf% and optimizing various wear parameters such as load, sliding distance and sliding velocity in order to understand the wear contribution. The result of L9 orthogonal array under dry sliding wear experiment using pin –on – disc tribometer is analyzed by taguchi and ANOVA to determine the optimal wear rate by considering the smaller the best attribute. The result shows that by increasing fiber volume Vf% up to 7% minimum wear rate is observed in materials produced by VARTM and RTM technique. It is evident that improvement of fiber volume in GFRP increases the wear resistance and produce preferential wear with negligible de-bonding of the reinforcement as per SEM study.

Keywords:
Dry sliding wear; Hand layup; VARTM; RTM; Taguchi & ANOVA