Friction and Wear Behavior of Carbon Fabric-Reinforced Epoxy Composites

Besides intrinsic material properties, weight/energy savings and wear performance play an important role in the selection of materials for any engineering application. The tribological behavior of carbon fabric-reinforced epoxy composites produced by molding technique was investigated using a reciprocating pin-on-plate configuration. It was shown that the wear rate considerably decreased (by a factor of approx. 8) with the introduction of the reinforcing carbon fabric into the epoxy matrix. It was observed that the wear rate of the tested composites increased with an increase in normal load. Moreover, the coefficient of friction for epoxy/steel and composites/steel tribo-pairs was also determined and decreased with increasing load. By means of scanning electron microscopy of the wear tracks, different wear mechanisms such as matrix wear, matrix fatigue and cracking, matrix debris formation for neat epoxy together with fabric/fiber thinning, fabric breakage and fabric/matrix debonding for the reinforced epoxy could be distinguished.