Micro hardness and erosive wear behavior of tungsten carbide filled epoxy polymer nano composites

Abstract

The present work studies the tribological performance of Tungsten Carbide (WC) nanoparticles reinforced epoxy polymer nanocomposites. Polymer nanocomposites are prepared by hand lay-up method. Erosive wear and hardness tests were conducted to examine the physical and wear properties of epoxy/WC nanocomposites. Addition of WC nanoparticles led to significant reduction in erosion rate. In addition to that, incorporation of WC nanoparticles enhanced the hardness of epoxy nano composites. At 2% weight of WC nano filler, nanocomposites showed better performance in erosion wear properties and also in hardness. While at 3wt% of WC filler, least performance in hardness was caused by the weak adhesive bonding between the matrix and filler. The nature of erosion wear behavior was observed. Finally worn surfaces of nanocomposites were inspected using a "scanning electron microscope (SEM)".