Tribological response of cenosphere/epoxy syntactic foams

Abstract

Fly ash cenospheres are generated in thermal power plants as waste materials. Use of these waste materials in beneficial applications is desired. The present work deals with developing syntactic foams with fly ash cenospheres filled in epoxy resin matrix. Such syntactic foams can be used as core materials in sandwich composites. The fabricated syntactic foams are evaluated for dry sliding wear behavior. Sliding velocity and filler content were the study parameters, effects of which were analyzed on wear rate. Specimens were prepared with 10, 30 and 50 wt. % cenospheres for the study. Sliding against hardened ground steel on a pin-on disc wear testing machine was conducted. The experimental results and subsequent analysis showed that the addition of cenospheres as filler material in epoxy matrix considerably increases the wear resistance of the composites. The craters on the specimen surface due to presence of cenospheres play important role in the wear process. Copyright � 2015 by DEStech Publications, Inc. and American Society for Composites. All rights reserved.