Erosion Wear Performance of Sheep Wool Fibre Reinforced Polyester Composites

Abstract

This research work focused on erosion performance of sheep wool reinforced polyester composites at varying wt% of fibre content (20 wt%, 30 wt% and 40 wt%). The compression moulding method is used to develop the composite plate. To investigate the wear rate of the developed composite plates, the composite plate is subjected to erosion studies. As per ASTM G76 the erosion test was done with the help of air jet erosion tester. To investigate the factors of varying wt% of fibre, impingement angle and impact velocity of the fabricated plates. The erosion behaviour of sheep wool fibre reinforced polyester composites is evaluated at varying wt% of reinforcement (20 wt%, 30 wt% and 40 wt%) with different impact velocities (41 m/s, 72 m/s and 100 m/s) and at different impingement angle (30o , 60o and 90o ). The standoff distance, time and erodent discharge rate were kept constant. Alumina oxide is used as erodent material with the size of 50 µm. From the result, it is observed that increase in impingement angle increase the erosion rates. Another observation is made that addition to impact velocity, increase in wt% of reinforcement decreases the wear rates.