Influence of glass/carbon fiber stacking sequence on mechanical and three-body abrasive wear resistance of hybrid composites

Glass and carbon fiber reinforced polymer hybrid composites are the need of the hour to overcome the weakness of individual fibers. The mechanical and abrasive wear property of the hybrid composites needs to be evaluated to ascertain the feasibility in structural and tribological applications. In this article, hybrid composites of different stacking sequence such as [G(3)C(2)](S,) [GCG(2)C](S) and[G(2)C(2)G](S) has been designed. The flexural strength and three body abrasive wear resistance of the hybrid composites were evaluated and compared among themselves. It is observed that the flexural strength and modulus of [GCG(2)C](S) type hybrid composite was improved by 46.1% and 49.5% respectively as compared to plain glass fiber reinforced polymer composites. The specific wear rate was evaluated by three-body abrasive wear at different operating parameters and optimized the same through response surface methodology. Box-Behnken design of the experiment was adopted to design the experiments. The model has predicted the minimum specific wear rate for [GCG(2)C](S) hybrid composite is18.8476 x 10(-3) mm(3) Nm(-1) at applied load of 33.15 N and sliding distance of 1100 m. The model predicted results were compared with experimental one and found a good agreement between them. The worn surface of the composites was analyzed by scanning electron microscope to understand the wear mechanism.