Evaluation of some mechanical characterization and optimization of waste marble dust filled glass fiber reinforced polymer composite

Abstract

In the present work, vacuum-assisted resin transfer molding (VARTM) technique is adopted to fabricate marble dust (0, 10, 20, 30 wt%) filled glass fiber with epoxy resin composite materials for analysis of some mechanical properties such as tensile strength, flexural strength, inter-laminar shear strength (ILSS) and fracture toughness. The tensile strength of the unfilled polymer composite is around 430.76 MPa but on addition of marble dust in the composite the strength shows in a decreasing trend. While, the tensile modulus shows in an increasing order up to 20 wt% (3.85 GPa) marble dust filled composite initially compared with specimens (10 and 30 wt%). The strain at failure is found to be 8.45% for 30 wt% of marble dust filled composite and for unfilled composite the failure is 11.47%. The flexural strength and flexural modulus are showing improvement with the inclusion of marble dust up to 20 wt% in the composite, but in the inter laminar shear strength (ILSS) shows improvement up to 30 wt%. The critical stress intensity factor (KIC) and critical strain energy factor (GIC) values are found to be 12.91 MPa.m1/2 and 1.51 KJ m−2 respectively for 30 wt% marble dust filled composites. Finally, preference selection index (PSI) technique is implemented for attaining the best combination of physico-mechanical, thermo-mechanical and erosive wear properties of the composites.