Abrasive wear behaviour of thermoplastic copolyester elastomer composites: A statistical approach

Design of polymer composites for tribological applications is a multi-criteria optimization problem. Two-body abrasive wear (2-BAW) behaviour of thermoplastic copolyester elastomer (TCE) reinforced with and without short glass fiber, filled with various fillers (short carbon fiber, polytetrafluoroethylene, silicon carbide and alumina) in different proportions were influenced by the properties of their constituents. 2-BAW behaviour of multi-phased TCE composites was evaluated using pin-on-disc apparatus. This paper presents an approach to establish the model for predicting the specific wear rate (Ks) of TCE composites. Three-factors and three-levels, facecentered central composite design was used for conducting tests. Response surface methodology was applied to derive the second order quadratic model with the selected parameters. The results indicated that the Ks increases with increase in fiber/filler content and decreases with increase in grit size of silicon carbide (SiC) abrasives and abrading distance. The investigation also revealed that the fiber/filler content is the most influencing factor, followed by grit size of SiC abrasives and abrading distance. The predicted results show close agreement with the experimental. Hence the developed model could be used to predict abrasion behaviour of multi-phased TCE composites satisfactorily. The worn surfaces of TCE composites were analyzed with the help of scanning electron microscope.