Erosion Wear Performance Analysis of Polyester-GF-Granite Hybrid Composites using the Taguchi Method

Abstract

This paper investigates the solid particle erosion wear performance of multi component hybrid composites consisting of polyester, glass fiber and granite particulates. A mathematical model based on the principle of conservation of energy is developed and validated by a well designed set of experiments. For this, the design of experiments approach using Taguchi's orthogonal array is adopted to test the specimen in air jet type erosion test configuration. The results indicate that impact velocity, filler content, impingement angle and erodent size are the significant factors in the order of their influence on wear rate. Taguchi approach enables to determine optimal parameter setting that lead to minimization of erosion rate. (c) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Noorul Islam Centre for Higher Education