Development of polyester/LD slag composites for light duty application: mechanical and tribological characterization

Abstract The current investigation comprises the characterization of waste Lintz Donawitz (LD) slag/polyester composites to obtain a sustainable material. The effect of filler loading in the polyester resin is studied by preparing the sample with LD slag content varied from 0 wt% to 40 wt%. The prepared samples undergo various testing, which includes evaluation of different properties. The density of the polyester increases with LD Slag content. The experimental density is compared with the theoretical one and found that the difference between the two increases with the LD slag content, reaching a maximum value of 5.85% which depicts the presence of void content. The polyester filled with LD slag absorbs more water than unfilled polyester, and the increment rate depends on LD slag content and immersion time. Among the different filler loadings, the optimized tensile and flexural strength is obtained for 30 wt% LD Slag, which are 37.8 MPa and 59.2 MPa, respectively. The compressive strength shows an increment of 26.21%, and for hardness, it is 13.15%, for 40 wt% filler. The Taguchi method is used to design the experiment for conducting a wear test as per the L 25 orthogonal array. The experiment reveals that the filler quantity and sliding velocity significantly govern wear, whereas the distance of sliding and applied load show a minor effect. To understand the wear behaviour beyond the experimental domain, a three-layer neural network model is developed with 10 hidden layers. The deteriorated part of the specimen post-sliding wear was analyzed to understand the mechanism of material removal.