Effects of Applied Loads and Aluminium Nanoparticle Additions on Wear Resistance Properties of Particle Reinforced Epoxy Nanocomposites

The recent technology advancement has emerged aluminium nanoparticles for polymer reinforcements. Mechanical properties of epoxy containing aluminium nanoparticle was reported but its wear resistance is left unstudied. This study has been focused on effect of aluminium nanoparticle reinforced epoxy under different applied loads and velocities. It is obtained that the wear resistance increases with the applied loads but decreases with the percentages by weight of aluminium nanoparticle additions to epoxy. The wear rates recorded with aluminium nanoparticle reinforced epoxy are 81.2% and 82% smaller than those of the unreinforced epoxy and greater than 75.5 and 76.1% reductions noticed with the aluminium microparticle reinforced epoxy under applied loads of 9 and 25 N already reported in literature. Greater percentage reductions in the wear rates affirms aluminium nanoparticle as better reinforcement with improved wear resistance than its aluminium microparticle counterparts. Fishers’ value, 7.389 and prob, 0.042<0.05 affirms that the linear response surface model is significant in evaluating the wear resistance of the aluminium nanoparticle reinforced epoxy with 84.7% predictability while the remnants accounts for the residuals.