Tribological Property Of Road Marking Paint

Road markings plays a crucial role in road safety because they provide significant information to road users. The durability of road markings is extremely important especially when autonomous vehicles are inseparable part of the smart cities of the future. Autonomous vehicles navigate on a close track by detecting the trafficway markings. With faded, or missing road markings, autonomous vehicles will fail to detect the trafficway resulting in road accidents. Therefore, the road markings durability is of significant importance and must be investigated. The present study investigates the tribological property of the thermoplastic road marking material. The rotary sliding wear test is carried out based on Taguchi L18 Orthogonal Array. Sliding condition (dry or lubricated), applied load (10-20 N), sliding speed (0.6283-1.0472 m/s) and sliding distance (200-300 m) are design parameters whereas wear mass loss and coefficeint of friction are responses. The optimal combination of design parameters to achieve minimum wear mass loss and coefficient of friction is determined using Taguchi method. The optimal condition for minimum wear mass loss is in dry sliding condition, applied load of 10 N, sliding speed of 1.0472 m/s and sliding distance of 200 m. The optimal condition for minimum coefficient of friction is in dry sliding condition, applied load of 15 N, sliding speed of 1.0472 m/s and sliding distance of 250 m. Analysis of Variance is studied at 95% level of confidence to investigate the influence of each design parameter on responses. The results show that the wear mass loss and coefficient of friction are significantly influenced by applied load and sliding condition. The most influential factor which affects the wear mass loss and coefficient of friction is applied load, followed by sliding condition, sliding speed and sliding distance. Scanning Electron Microscopy observations are carried out to identify the wear mechanism for the worn surfaces