Thermo-mechanical and Erosion Wear Peculiarity of Hybrid Composites Filled with Micro and Nano Silicon Dioxide Fillers - A Comparative Study

This article presents the findings on thermo-mechanical and erosion wear characteristics of micro silicon dioxide (SiO2) fillers filled woven glass fiber based vinyl ester hybrid composites (MWGVHCs) as well as nano SiO2 filled woven glass fiber-vinyl ester hybrid composites (NWGVHCs). Wovenglass-vinyl ester based hybrid composites are developed, filled with 5wt.% and 10wt.% of micro and nano SiO2 fillers, respectively. Performance of filler filled composites is compared with the filler less composites. Thermo-mechanical analysis of hybrid composites is done as per ASTM standards. Angles of impact (30 degrees, 45 degrees, 60 degrees, 75 degrees and 90o), impact velocities (30, 55 and 80 m/s) and erodent size of 300, 450 and 600 mu m is used for erosion wear test of fabricated composites. Taguchi statistical method is employed for design of experiments to optimize the process parameters. Findings reveal that hybrid composites filled with 10wt% of nano SiO2 filler performed best amongst all the in-class composites. In order to optimize the performance of fabricated composites VIKOR method is also implemented.