Mechanical Characterization of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Epoxy Composites with and Without Mos2 Filler

Abstract

A typical composite is a material system composed of two or more constituent elements mixed and bonded on a macroscopic scale. Generally, a composite material is composed of reinforcement embedded in a matrix. The matrix holds the reinforcement to form the desired shape while the reinforcement improves the overall mechanical properties of the matrix. When designed properly, the new material exhibits better properties than would each individual constituent element. In this paper, an experimental investigation was carried out to study the mechanical characterization of carbon fiber reinforced epoxy composites with and without filler in tensile, hardness and flexural test conditions. Key Word: Filler, Carbon fiber, MoS2, Tensile strength, modulus, flexural strength and modulus I INTRODUCTION: The need for the use of newer material to combat wear situations has resulted in the emergence of polymer based composite materials. Fiber reinforced polymeric composites are the most rapidly growing class of materials due to their good combination of high specific strength and specific modulus. They are widely used for a variety of engineering applications. The importance of tribological properties convinced many researchers to study the friction and wear behavior to improve the wear resistance of polymeric composites. The polymer and their composites find very useful applications in automotive components such as gears, cams, wheels, brakes, clutches, bearings and also in other engineering applications like conveyor aids, chute liners, power, mining, agriculture and other allied field. The present study involves an experimental investigation was carried out to study the mechanical characterization of carbon fiber reinforced epoxy composites with and without filler in tensile, hardness and flexural test conditions. II LITERATURE REVIEW: Fibre reinforced polymeric materials have been widely used due to their superior properties, low density, and manufacturing flexibility. Numerous applications have been allocated for these materials in aerospace and automotive industries such as gears, seals, bearings, cams etc. In order that these components satisfactorily perform under loading conditions, they should have good mechanical, tribological and machining properties. Number of scientists and researchers are carrying out work to develop newer material system and characterize them for their various properties so that they can be selected for specific end use. A brief review of the literature is presented below throwing more light on the above. B. Suresha et al. [5] carried out a study on three-body abrasive wear behavior of carbon and glass fiber reinforced epoxy composites. From the study, they found that specific wear rate increased with applied load at lower abrading distance and decreased with increased abrading distance. Carbon epoxy composite showed better abrasion resistance as compared with that of glass fiber epoxy composites. A study on Erosive wear behavior of epoxy based composites at normal incidence was carried out by A.P. Harsha et al. [6]. They found that the bi-directional glass fibre reinforced epoxy composites showed better wear resistance than unidirectional reinforced composites. The erosion behavior of epoxy composites is controlled by the type of fibre and its arrangement. They also reported that the epoxy composites have shown peak erosion rate at 60 0 impingement angle at a velocity of 25m/s. J. Stabik et al. [7] conducted a study on electrical and tribological properties of gradient epoxy-graphite composites. They concluded that the surface resistivity increased significantly with decreasing content of filler in composite. J.K. Lancaster et al. [8] conducted a study on the effect of carbon fiber reinforcement on the friction and wear of polymers. They found that the wear rate can be reduced by the addition of a third component, such as graphite or bronze, although only with small sacrifice on the bulk strength. However, they felt that further investigations are required to determine the most effective additives and their proportions to obtain an optimum compromise in strength and wear properties. A study on solid particle erosion of glass fiber reinforced fly ash filled epoxy resin composites was carried out by V.K. Srivastava et al. [9]. From the experimental investigation, they found that the inclusion of fly ash filler in the GFRP composite decreased the hardness, tensile strength and density. They also reported that GFRP without any filler showed the highest erosion rate. The influence of impingement angle on erosive wear of all composites under consideration exhibited semi ductile wear behavior with maximum wear rate at 60° impingement. N. Mohan et al. [10] carried out a study for investigating two-body abrasive wear behavior of silicon carbide filled glass