A Study on Modified Mechanical and Wear Characteristics of Epoxy-Particulate Filled Homogenous Composites and Their Functionally Graded Materials

This article presents the investigations on modified mechanical and wear characteristics of cement kiln dust (CKD) reinforced homogeneous epoxy composites and its functionally graded materials developed for tribological applications. CKD reinforced homogeneous and functionally graded epoxy composites are developed by simple mechanical stirring and vertical centrifugal casting technique, respectively. Mechanical properties of these graded composites are evaluated and compared with those of homogenously filled epoxy composites. Sliding wear tests are conducted over a range of sliding velocities (105–314 cm/s), normal loads (20–40 N), filler contents $(0–20wt%)$⁠, and sliding distances (0.5–2 km). For this, a pin-on-disk machine and the design of experiments approach using Taguchi’s orthogonal arrays are used. A theoretical model is proposed for estimating the sliding wear rates for homogeneous, as well as graded composites. The results found from the theoretical model so proposed are found to be in good agreement with the experimental values under similar test conditions. This study reveals that the presence of cement kiln dust particles enhances the sliding wear resistance of epoxy resin and the homogeneous composites suffer greater wear loss than the graded composites. scanning electron microscopy micrograph confirms the graded dispersion of CKD particles in the matrix.