Dry wear studies on glass-fiber-reinforced epoxy composites

Continuous glass-fibre-reinforced epoxy composites were fabricated and their wear behaviour was studied. A rapid drop in the wear loss occurred with an increase in the sliding speed for the pure epoxy resin while the reinforced sample exhibited a mild decrease, a flat region and then a rise. Optical microscopy examination indicates that the higher wear loss for the composite at higher speeds could be due to loss of glass fibres. The variation in the coefficient of friction, $\mu$, with load and sliding speed was studied. Both the epoxy resin and the composite show a marked dependence of $\mu$ on load, which includes a peak. The pure epoxy resin showed no significant dependence of the coefficient of friction on sliding speed whereas the composite shows a peak value, thereby emphasizing the important role of the reinforcing fibres