Influence of erodent size, impingement angle and fillers on solid particle erosion wear behaviour of carbon fiber reinforced epoxy composite

Abstract

Solid Particle Erosion (SPE) is encountered by polymer composites when they are exposed to severe erosive environment. Solid Particle Erosion is a Convoluted Process which encompasses many critical parameters influencing the erosive wear. The present work focuses on the characterization of bi-directional Carbon fiber Reinforced Epoxy Composite (with/without Particulate Graphite Fillers) subjected to Erosion wear as per ASTM G76 Standard. Experiments were designed according to Taguchi Method. Experiments were carried out for three different Erodent (Silica Sand) grain sizes viz, 212µm, 425µm, and 600µm and for Three Impingement angles viz, 30°, 60° and 90°. Particle Velocity & Stand-off Distance was maintained at 75m/s and 10mm respectively. The influence of various process parameters on erosive wear was analyzed using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). From the analysis it is observed that impingement angle greatly affects the erosive wear, from the results it is observed that the composite exhibits brittle behavior with maximum erosion rate at 90 degree impingement angle and from the analysis it is also clear that addition of graphite fillers significantly improved the erosion resistance of carbon fiber reinforced epoxy composite. Further obtained results were transformed into Signal-to-Noise ratio to optimize the Various Process Parameters. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) was employed to examine the surface morphology of the eroded surfaces. Finally from the dataset obtained during experiments an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) based predictive model was developed with performance error in the range of 0.64% to 19.28%.