Influence of CaCO3, Al2O3, and TiO2 microfillers on physico-mechanical properties of Luffa cylindrica/polyester composites

The development of natural fibre reinforced polymer composites has gained popularity in many applications due to their environment friendly characteristics over the synthetic fibre based polymer composites. This paper describes the fabrication and physical, mechanical, three-body abrasive wear and water absorption behaviour of Luffa fibre reinforced polyester composites with and without addition of microfillers of Al2O3, CaCO3 and TiO2. The ranking of the composite materials has been made by using Technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) method with output parameters of their physical, mechanical and abrasive wear and water absorption attributes. The addition of microfillers has enhanced greatly the physical and mechanical properties of Luffa-fibre based composites. The addition of microfillers has influenced the physico-mechanical properties of Luffa-fibre based polyester composites in descending order of CaCO3, Al2O3, and TiO2. (C) 2016, Karabuk University. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V.