Journal of Material Sciences & Engineering

Effect of Date Palm Seeds on the Tribological Behaviour of Polyester Composites under Different Testing Conditions

Abstract

Ibrahem RA

Natural Fiber Reinforcement Polymeric Composites (NFRPC) used in the recent days in wide range of industrial applications. For its good environmental properties and availability, natural fibers and natural additives used as reinforcing material for most of polymeric composites. In the present work, polyester composites filled by date seeds powder as a natural filling material were proposed as (NFRPC). Effect of different parameters on the tribological behavior of the proposed composite is studied. The proposed variables are; applied normal load, sliding speed, sliding distance and the percentage of filler contents. Pin on Disk tribometer was designed and constructed for the tribological measurements. Friction coefficient and rate of wear for the proposed composites have been obtained. The results show that; the coefficient of friction for polyester composites filled with date seed powder decreases by 15% with increase of filler under high contact pressure, beside the increase of velocity increases friction coefficient up to 10%. Rate of wear decreases to 10E-5 gm-1 with increase of date seed filler up to 10% under low contact pressure and low sliding speed, but; unfortunately, continuous increases of date seed filler from 15% to 25% decrease the resistance of wear for proposed composites under high contact pressure and high sliding speed. There is a significant effect of the applied load (contact pressure) and sliding velocity on the wear rate of polyester composite filled with date seed.