Slurry Abrasion Wear Assessment of Hybrid-Reinforced Polymer Composite Using Comparative Taguchi Gray Relational Analysis

This work aims to examine the slurry abrasion wear behavior of granite dust/titania-filled E-glass fiber-reinforced vinyl ester-based polymer composites. A multi-performance characteristic gray relational approach is also introduced to optimize the tribological behavior of the fabricated hybrid polymer composite material manufactured using conventional hand lay-up technique. The granite dust and titania weight fraction is varied from 5 to 15% while keeping bi-directional E-glass fiber weight fraction as constant, i.e., 30%. The slurry abrasive wear assessment of the manufactured composite specimen was evaluated under various operating conditions. As far as incorporation of granite dust as well as titania particulate is concerned, the slurry wear resistance of the material increases significantly. The optimal levels of input parameters such as wheel speed, erodent size, filler percentages, and normal loads are selected from the response table and graphs of the gray relation grade. ANOVA is used to examine the meaning of wear parameters in the slurry abrasive wear assessment of fabricated polymer composites.