Wear Behavior of Recycled Polyethylene Terephthalate Reinforced with Fly Ash Cenosphere

Polymers and their composites are emerging as viable alternative materials to metal and alloy-based ones in many general purpose and special purpose engineering applications. Further, the recycled engineering plastics like post-consumer Poly(Ethylene Terephthalate) (r-PET) can be viewed as an economical alternate feed systems for the production of parts which would have been otherwise made from non-recycled materials. In the current work, the tribological performance of Fly Ash Cenosphere (FAC) filled rPET composite is experimentally investigated to understand the influence of percentage of FAC and the Silane treatment of FAC (TFAC) using pin-on-disc apparatus. Also, wear behavior of TFAC filled rLDPE blended rPET (M-rPET/TFAC) composite is studied. Specific wear rate (SWR) of rPET/TFAC was found to be lower compared to rPET/FAC. Further, M-rPET/TFAC composite has exhibited better wear resistance yielding minimum SWR compared to other composite samples studied. Thus, it can be concluded that rLDPE blended rPET/ Silane coated FAC (M-rPET/TFAC) composite possess better tribological characteristic and reveal the fact that modification of both matrix and reinforcement enhances the wear resistance of rPET composite.