Tribo-performance of polyester hybrid composites: Damage assessment and parameter optimization using Taguchi design

This paper investigates the solid particle erosion wear performance of a multi component hybrid composite consisting of polyester, glass fibers and alumina particles. A mathematical model for damage assessment in erosion is developed and validated by a well designed set of experiments. For this, the design of experiments approach using Taguchi's orthogonal arrays is used. The study reveals that glass-polyester composite without any filler suffers greater erosion loss than the hybrid composite with alumina filling. Significant control factors and their interactions that influence the wear rate are identified. Finally, optimal factor settings are determined using genetic algorithm. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.