Mechanical and Wear Studies on Epoxy Composites with Glass Fiber Reinforcement and Carbon Powder Fillers

Polymer composites with glass fiber reinforcement are extensively used in the transport and aerospace domains. Their mechanical properties are greatly enhanced by adding small amounts of fillers. In this research work, fillers such as carbon powder in 0–5% range were used to strengthen polymer composites. Every test has been conducted in compliance with ASTM guidelines. The outcomes of the investigation showed that composites with additional carbon powder fillers have better wear and mechanical properties. The actual and the predicted values from response surface methodology (RSM) agreed fairly well. Therefore, RSM can be employed to forecast the composites’ properties under various filler loading scenarios. Also, the prediction employs an artificial neural network. The best outcomes were attained with the sigmoid function. Artificial neural network prediction (with R2 value 0.99821) was marginally better than RSM’s (R2 value is 0.9947).