Effect of addition of reinforcements on the tribological behaviour of the polymer based syntactic foams

In the present study, the tribological behaviour of the syntactic foams manufactured using the fly ash cenospheres as the reinforcements and the epoxy as the matrix were studied for their tribological performance. The effect of the reinforcement concentration on the tribological properties like wear rate and the coefficient of friction were observed by using the pin on disc tribo tester. Four types of samples were prepared by varying the cenosphere volume fraction from 10% to 40% and tribological tests were conducted at constant sliding speed of 1 m/s and constant applied load of 50 N for a sliding distance of 2000 m. The increase in cenosphere volume fraction reduced wear rate and increased friction coefficient. The reduction in the wear rate may be due to the reduction in the effective contact area due to the pores created by crushed cenospheres. The increment in the coefficient of friction may be due to the increase in the cenosphere shells in the wear debris which act as obstacles. The worn surfaces of the foams were observed using the scanning electron microscope to determine the dominant wear mechanism.