Dry Sliding Wear Behaviour of Glass Fibre Reinforced Epoxy Composites Filled with Natural Fillers

Fibre reinforced plastics (FRPs) are emerging as a potential candidate for a wide variety of industrial applications owing to their good combination of physical and mechanical properties. In recent times, FRP parts are widely used as sliding components in different engineering applications. Due to the legitimate theoretical and practical importance, the study of tribological performance of these emerging materials becomes highly decisive. In the present research initiative, two different natural fillers; rice husk and wheat husk were used as fillers in glass-epoxy composite laminates. The frictional and wear characteristics of the developed composites have been studied under different sliding conditions. Results conclude that rice husk is more efficient in improving the tribological performance of glass-epoxy composites than the wheat husk. In addition, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was carried out to study the morphology of the worn specimens to analyze the wear mechanism.