Effects of wood constituents and content, and glass fiber reinforcement on wear behavior of wood/PVC composites

In flooring applications, experimental data and insight from scientific investigations; on wear properties of wood/polymer composites (WPCs) are important for engineers to understand how to design and formulate WPC materials with high resistance to wear. In this work, three different types of wood flour namely Xylia kerrii Craib & Hutch., Hevea brasiliensis Linn., and Mangifera indica Linn. - were utilized and incorporated into poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) with a fixed content (10 phr) of E-chopped strand glass fiber. The physical, mechanical and wear properties, in terms of specific wear rate, were then assessed as a function of wood content and sliding distance. The experimental results suggested that the addition of wood flour increased the flexural modulus and strength up to 40 phr; beyond this concentration, the flexural properties decreased. Hardness was not affected by the addition of wood flour. The mechanical and wear properties of WPVC composites were found to improve with the addition of the E-glass fiber. Xylia kerrii Craib & Hutch, wood exhibited the lowest specific wear rate for non-reinforced WPVC composites, whereas Hevea brasiliensis Linn. wood showed the lowest specific wear rate for the glass fiber reinforced WPVC composites. The longer the sliding distance, the greater the specific wear rate in all cases. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.