Abstract

Fiber reinforced polymer composites (FRPCs) are utilized as a part of all sort of advanced engineering structures like aircraft, ships, boats and, helicopters, cars, sporting goods, chemical processing equipment etc. In the area of composites the fiber strengthened composite comprising of one fiber is utilized for long time. The outcomes would have showed up for certain region. This is because that utilization of single fiber comprising of restricted property. To beat this issue the utilization of another fiber is made. This outcome as hybrid composites. Hybrid polymer composite material offers the manufacturer to get the required properties by the choice of matrix and fiber. This work concerns the development of glass-basalt hybrid fiber composite with and without Zirconia (ZrO2) fillers. All the composites were fabricated by hand layup technique. The mechanical characterises such as tensile strength and modulus, three point bending strength and modulus and hardness have been investigated as per ASTM standards. The wear test was done by utilising pin on disc apparatus over various loads (10 and 20 N) and different sliding distances (1000, 2000, 3000 and 4000 m). From the experimental investigations, it has been noticed that loading of ZrO2 filler to glass basalt hybrid-fiber reinforced composites shows superior tensile and hardness characteristics compared to plain composites. The wear test results shows that addition of ZrO2 filler in G-B/E hybrid-composites have significant effect on wear characteristics under different sliding distance/loads. Again, it was noticed that 4 weight % of filler loading indicates lower wear as compared to neat GB-E hybrid composites. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of the failure composites revealed various aspects of the failure region. The failure of the tensile and flexure fractured surfaces have also been reported.