Enhancement of mechanical and specific wear properties of glass/carbon fiber reinforced polymer hybrid composite

Mechanical components are subjected to friction and wear necessitating evaluation of tribological properties of polymer based composites. The wear properties of composites depend on the material, operating conditions and on the stacking sequence in hybrid composites. In this article, evaluation of the mechanical properties and optimum parameters for minimum specific wear rate of the hybrid composite were determined. The Hybrid composite was fabricated by hand-layup method with stacking sequence [CG3C]S of glass and carbon fiber. The results revealed that the flexural strength and tensile strain are improved through hybridization. The wear properties of the hybrid composite was evaluated by DUCOM three body abrasion tester with different operating conditions such as applied load and sliding distance. Box-Behnken design of experiment was used to perform the experiments. Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was employed to model and optimize the parameters for minimum specific wear rate of hybrid composite. The predicted value for minimum specific wear rate of 16.8511×10-3mm3/Nm was applied load of 33N and sliding distance of 1221m for hybrid [CG3C]S which was in close agreement with experiment.