Influence of Agro-Waste Filler on Mechanical and Tribological Properties of Bast Fiber Based Epoxy Composites

An attempt has been made to study the influence of agro-waste filler on the mechanical and wear properties of bast fiber reinforced polymer composites. Two groups of the specimens, based on a combination of grewiaoptiva as fibrous material and epoxy as matrix material, and the grewiaoptiva containing specimens where hybridization is done with the addition of mustard cake filler as agro-waste were prepared. All specimens were fabricated by hand layup technique. The filler component fixed at 2 wt. % while the weight fraction of fibrous material was varied in the range of 3-9 wt. %, so as to fabrication of composites specimen with six different compositions. Based on the comparison, grewiaoptiva (9 wt. %) epoxy composites incorporation of mustard cake filler shows maximum value of tensile strength (24 Mpa.), flexural strength (18.31 Mpa.), hardness (39.01 Hv) and impact energy (3.6 J) among all the composites. Moreover dry sliding wear behavior was observed by using the pin on disc according to the ASTM G99 standard. Result suggested that grewiaoptiva composites incorporation of mustard cake filler exhibited superior wear resistance properties as compared to mono grewiaoptiva composites.