Author(s)

Bharath Basavaraj Pattanashetty¹, Suresha Bheemappa², Hemanth Rajashekaraiah³, Somashekar Hirehally Mahadevappa⁴

¹Department of Automobile Engineering, Sri Jagadguru Mallikarjuna Murugharajendra Institute of Technology, Chitradurga, India.
²Department of Mechanical Engineering, The National Institute of Engineering, Mysore, India.
³Department of Mechanical Engineering, NIE Institute of Technology, Mysore, India.
⁴Department of Mechanical Engineering, Dr. Ambedkar Institute of Technology, Bengaluru, India.

The present study focuses on the development of polymeric friction composites with short carbon fiber, micron and nano-sized fillers, additives with varying weight% in phenol formaldehyde (PF) matrix using hot compression moulding process. The composites prepared with fillers viz. Molybdenum disulfide or Molykote (MK) and multi walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) in carbon fiber reinforced PF matrix is designated as Set-I composites. Inclusion of graphite and nano-clay in carbon fiber reinforced PF matrix is designated as Set-II composites. The prepared composites are tested in Dry sand rubber wheel abrasion wear test rig, following ASTM standards for evaluating the abrasive wear behaviour. From the routine experiments, it was observed that the presence of combined micro and nanofillers i.e. 11.5 wt% MK + 0.5 wt% MWCNTs of Set-I, has shown superior abrasion resistance among the study group. The test results of the Set-I and Set-II composites are analyzed using Taguchi experimental design followed by analysis of variance (ANOVA) to understand the contributions of wear control factors affecting the abrasive wear characteristics. Further, worn surface of selected samples is analyzed using scanning electron micrographs.

Friction Composites, Nanofillers, Abrasion, Design of Experiments, Scanning Electron Microscope

Pattanashetty, B. , Bheemappa, S. , Rajashekaraiah, H. and Mahadevappa, S. (2019) Effect of Nanofillers on Abrasion Resistance of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Phenolic Friction Composites. Materials Sciences and Applications, 10, 65-77. doi: 10.4236/msa.2019.101007.