Thermo-mechanical characterizations and erosion wear studies of fumed silica-reinforced jute/epoxy composites

This study investigates the influence of nano-fumed silica content on thermo-mechanical properties of jute/epoxy composites. The results reveal that jute composites without filler (JJJJ-0) exhibited highest tensile strength (33.01 MPa) and percentage elongation (1.9522%), while composites with 1.5% and 2.5% filler demonstrated the highest tensile modulus (1967 MPa) and flexural modulus (2432.9 MPa), respectively. The observation demonstrates that as the filler content increases in jute composites, tensile strength decreases but flexural strength increases. However, an exception is noted for sample containing excess filler (3.5%), which exhibited the lowest flexural strength (44.36 MPa). The composite with 2.5% filler exhibited the highest flexural strength (53.5 MPa). Thermal analysis indicated that the addition of nanofiller enhanced both the activation energy (E_a) and thermal stability of the jute composites. A four-layer carbon composite without filler (CCCC-0) was also fabricated in order to compare wear and thermal stability performance with jute composites. The wear study was performed at different temperatures and found that JJJJ-3.5 composite exhibited superior wear resistance at ambient temperature, while CCCC-0 composite had better wear resistance at high temperatures. Also, the surface morphology of the eroded surface was examined using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) to study the failure mechanism of composites.