Investigation of Dry Sliding Behavior of Blast Furnace Slag Reinforced Epoxy Composite

Polymer matrix composites are advanced materials that can be used in a variety of applications such as low density, high strength, automobile, aerospace and home appliances. Common and commercially used composites generally use polymers as matrix materials and are commonly known as resin solutions. variety of polymer materials are available as matrix type and the commonly used matrix materials are epoxy, urethane, polyamide, polyester, polyether ether ketone (PEEK)… The reinforcement materials used are generally fibers, particles and ground minerals. Due to the increasing production of iron and steel, high levels of slag are emerging and pose problems for both producers and the environment. From this point of view, in this study, it has been investigated on the wear behavior of the epoxy matrix as a reinforcement in order to evaluate the blast furnace slag (BFS), which is known to have hard ceramic components. EP100 epoxy resin and EP385H hardener are commercially available. The epoxy resin was selected as matrix and Al2O3 and blast furnace slag dusts of 61 μm, 91 μm and 125 μm were used as reinforcement (Table 1). In the produced composites the reinforcement ratio was kept constant at 30% and the epoxy and reinforcement powders were mixed until a homogeneous mixture was obtained. The curing agent was added during the mixture and at the end of the process the mixture was poured into the silicone mold. The samples were then allowed to cure for 36 hours at room temperature. Dry sliding wear behavior of samples tested with ball on disc wear device. The wear resistance of the composites reinforced with blast furnace slag at all conditions was higher than the samples reinforced with Al2O3. However, the volume losses of composites reinforced with blast furnace slag especially at low loads are much lower than the samples reinforced with Al2O3. The reason for this; It can be shown that the blast furnace slag having a fragile structure is broken under high load and divided into many sharp edges and these particles contribute to abrasion by acting as abrasive material in front of the abrasive ball. The volume losses of the samples increased with increasing load. Because the two forces during wear affect the wear losses. One of them is the force acting on the counter-surface of the ball, while the other is the shear force. The increase of the load increased the penetration of abrasive ball to the opposite surface. Therefore, the amount of material to be affected during the relative movement of the abrasive ball is also increased. As a result, if sufficient shear