Experimental study on two-body and three-body abrasive wear behaviour of jute-natural rubber flexible green composite

Abstract

The use of laboratory testing has become more significant to assess abrasion resistance in flexible reinforcement of armour and car structural components. In this study, compliant composite with constituents as woven jute fabric and natural rubber encapsulated in an NR-based B stage cured prepreg were tested for wear due to abrasion under two- and three-body conditions. Flexible composites are fabricated in three different configurations namely Jute/Rubber/Jute, Jute/Rubber/Rubber/Jute and Jute/Rubber/Jute/Rubber/Jute. The present study makes use of abrasive paper with a grit size of 60 and silica sand with size 250 μm as the abrasive medium for two- and three-body abrasion tests, respectively, and the specific rate of wear is calculated. Though the wear trend of the composites follows a similar pattern in the case of two- and three-body wear, the mechanisms governing the wear are found to be different. The morphology of the worn surface is studied with the aid of a scanning electron microscope. © The Author(s) 2022.