Tribology of Composites

Although a variety of hard particles are used as particulate fillers in polymeric resins, the use of industrial wastes for this purpose has not been adequately explored. Blast furnace slag (BFS) is such an industrial waste which is generated in huge quantities during iron making in iron and steel industries. The present work attempts to utilize this solid waste BF Slag as the filler material in composite making with polymers like epoxy and polypropylene (PP). Chemical analysis of BF slag suggests the presence of oxides of calcium, silicon, magnesium, aluminum, iron and titanium. This research reports the manufacturing details and the wear characteristics of a series of epoxy- BFS and PP-BFS composites (with and without glass fiber reinforcement). In this book, the tribology of BF Slag reinforced composite are characterized in regard to their physical and mechanical properties. A wealth of property data has been generated by conducting different characterization tests under controlled laboratory conditions to evaluate various mechanical characteristics of the BFS filled composites.