Effect of Abrasive Types on the Three-Body Abrasive Wear Behaviour of Glass-Vinyl Ester and Carbon-Vinyl Ester Composites

Woven fabric reinforced polymer composites are attracting the attention of material scientists in recent years in view of enhancement in physical and mechanical properties as well as ease in processing. Though woven fabric type and lay out of composite is known to control the properties, the information on the tribo-performance of the woven fabric reinforced vinyl ester composites in the literature is scanty. Hence, the present investigation focuses on the vinyl ester based composite reinforced with glass fibers in one case and carbon fibers in the other case. They were made by vacuum assisted resin transfer moulding process. Further, the samples were characterized for three-body abrasive wear behaviour using dry sand rubber wheel abrasion tester with two different abrasives (silica sand and quartz). The wear data revealed that the C-V composite showed lower abrasion loss compared to G-V composite. The scanning electron microscopic pictures depicting the worn surface features supported the wear data.