A comparative study for the leverage of micro and nano SiC fillers on thermo-mechanical and erosion wear peculiarity of woven glass fibre-based vinyl ester composites

The impact of micro and nano silicon carbide (SiC) filler addition on thermo-mechanical behaviour and erosion wear is investigated. Woven glass-vinyl ester composites are developed, filled with 5 wt% and 10 wt% of micro and nano SiC fillers, respectively. Filler less composites are also prepared for comparative study. Thermo-mechanical characterisation of composites is done as per ASTM standards. Erosion wear test is performed on composites for various angles of impact (30°, 45°, 60°, 75° and 90°) and impact velocities (30, 55 and 80 m/s). Silica sand as an erodent particle with size of 300, 450 and 600 μm is used for the experimental work. Taguchi statistical method is used for design of experiments to optimise the process parameters. Results reflect that nanocomposites filled with 10 wt% of nano SiC filler performed best amongst the whole lot. VIKOR method is also implemented for fabricated composites to optimise their performance.