Wear Behavior of Plant Fiber (Pine-Bark) and Cement Kiln Dust-Reinforced Polyester Composites Using Taguchi Experimental Model

Parametric appraisal of a dry sliding wear process is presented for a set of new composites consisting of polyester as the matrix, flakes of pine-bark as the fibrous reinforcing component, and the kiln-dust of a cement plant as the filler. The filler content in the composites is fixed at 50 wt%, while the weight fraction of fiber reinforcement is varied (0-12 wt%) so as to obtain composite samples of three different compositions. Wear tests are carried out with the help of a pin-on-disc test rig employing the design of experiments approach based on Taguchi's orthogonal arrays. The findings of the experiments indicate that the rate of wear is greatly influenced by various control factors. An optimal parameter combination is determined, which leads to minimization of wear rate. Analysis of variance is performed on the measured data and signal-to-noise (S/N) ratios. A mathematical correlation, consistent with the experimental observations is proposed as a predictive equation for estimation of sliding wear rate of these composites. Finally, optimal factor settings for minimum wear are determined using genetic algorithm.