Optimisation of testing parameters on two-body abrasive wear behaviour of nano-oMMT filled carbon-epoxy composites based on the Taguchi method

Two-body abrasive wear behaviour of carbon fabric reinforced epoxy (C-E) composites and nanosized organo modified montmorillonite (oMMT) particles dispersed C-E hybrid composites was investigated. Abrasive wear tests were carried out using a pin-on-disc machine under multi-pass condition. Silicon carbide (SiC) waterproof abrasive papers of different particle sizes were used under dry abrasion conditions. The influence of tribological parameters like applied normal load, abrading distance, filler loading and particle size of the SiC abrasives on the wear volume was investigated. Routine experimental results indicate that the wear volume depends on wt % of oMMT loading and the specific wear rate decreases with increase of abrading distance and increases with increasing load for all the composites. The scanning electron microscopy pictures indicate the reasons for failure of composites and influencing parameters. The orthogonal array, signal-to-noise ratio and analysis of variance were employed to study the optimal testing parameters on oMMT filled carbon-epoxy composites with 20 µm and 40 µm SiC particle sizes. The experimental results demonstrate that the abrading distance was the major parameter on abrasive wear, followed by filler loading and applied normal load. The particle size of SiC, however, was found to have a neglecting effect. Moreover, the optimal combination of the testing parameters could be predicted. Regression analysis was used to arrive at a mathematical model to predict the wear volume in terms of tribological parameters. The predicted wear volume of the composites was found to lie close to the experimental values.