Materials Science and Engineering A 435–436 (2006) 282–287

Effects of wheat starch on erosive wear of E-glass fibre

reinforced epoxy resin composite materials
V.K. Srivastava ∗
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221005, India
Received 14 April 2006; received in revised form 30 June 2006; accepted 28 July 2006

Abstract
Erosive wear tests were carried out to study the effects of particle, impingement angle and particle velocity on the solid particle erosion behaviour
of E-glass fibre reinforced epoxy resin (GFRP) composites. The erosive wear of wheat flour powder filled composites is evaluated at different
impingement angles from 30◦ to 90◦ and at three different velocities of 24, 35 and 52 m s−1 . The erodent used is silica sand with the size range
150–250 ␮m of irregular shapes. The result shows erosive wear rates of GFRP composite with 2 g wheat flour, as filler is the lowest. This restricts
fiber-matrix debonding. Pure glass epoxy without any filler shows the highest erosion rate due to weak bonding strength. The morphologies of
eroded surface were examined by the scanning electron microscope.
© 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: E-glass fibre; Epoxy resin; Wheat flour; Erosive rate; Impingement angle; Particle velocity

1. Introduction conducting tests on cellulignin based materials wheat flour was

Growing concerns over the environmental impact of solid
waste disposal have increased interest in biodegradable poly-
mers in recent years. While a number of biodegradable polymers,
particularly polyesters, have been developed, their commercial
success has often been limited in part due to their high cost
relative to commodity thermoplastics. Because of its low cost,
biodegradability and renewability, starch has been investigated
as a filler and extender for many polymers. A general difficulty
encountered in the use of granular starch as filler and extender
is the reduction in yield and tensile strength as starch content is
increased, but use of small quantity of starch improves the inter-
facial strength due to mechanical interlocking between adjacent
layers [1,2].
A powder derivative of acid pre-hydrolysis processing of cel-
lulose wastes, known as cellulignin, was used as filler in resin
matrix composites. Cellulose based materials are widely spread
all over the world, both in native and cultivated areas. Cellulignin
is obtained as a dark brown powder with a fibrous structure and
therefore could also be potentially used as filler in composites or
in agglomerates, as a substitute for wood based materials. While
∗ Tel.: +91 542 2135619; fax: +91 542 2368174.
E-mail address: vk sa@yahoo.co.in.
used as filler to extend the mixture in order to decrease the cost
of the resin [3,4].
A crucial parameter for the design with composites is
the fibre content, as it controls the mechanical and thermo-
mechanical responses. In order to obtain the favoured material
properties for a particular application, it is important to know
how the material performance changes with the fibre content
under given loading conditions. The erosive wear behaviour of
polymer composite systems as a function of fibre content has
been studied in the past [5–7]. It was observed that the inclu-
sion of brittle fibres in both thermosetting and thermoplastic
matrices leads to compositions with lower erosion resistance.
Various researchers [7–9] have investigated the influence of
velocity, impact angle, size and weight of impact in abrasive
on the erosion rate of fibre reinforced plastic composites. Their
results showed that composite materials generally behaved in
brittle fashion. Pallout et al. [10] have examined the erosion
mechanisms in unidirectional glass fibre reinforced epoxy resin
(GFRP) composite. Their result shows that the erosion rate of
GFRP composite is exhibited brittle erosion behaviour. The
epoxy matrix exhibits semi-ductile erosion behaviour with a
maximum weight loss at impingement of 45◦ . Tewari et al. [11]
have also investigated the erosion behaviour of unidirectional
carbon and glass fibre reinforced epoxy composites at impinge-
ment of 60◦ . It was observed that the inclusion of fibres in

0921-5093/$ – see front matter © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.msea.2006.07.144
 V.K. Srivastava / Materials Science and Engineering A 435–436 (2006) 282–287 283

epoxy resin behaves in ductile manner with maximum erosion

rate.
In the present work, experiments were carried out to study the
effects of wheat flour powder, impingement angle and particle
velocity on the solid particle erosion behaviour of cross-plied
glass fibre reinforced epoxy resin composites.

2. Experimental procedure

2.1. Materials and specimen

An E-glass cross-plied fibre supplied by Fibre Pilkington

Limited was used as the reinforcement in a matrix of epoxy resin
(CY-205 Araldite and HY-951 hardener) supplied by Ciba-Geigy
of India Limited. Wheat flour powder was used as particulate
filler. It was sieved to obtain the particle size of 105 ␮m or less.
First, epoxy is mixed with hardener in the ratio of 10:1 by weight.
To avoid formation of bubbles by liberated CO2 in resin, it was
degassed in vacuum at 110 ◦ C before use. Epoxy resin and wheat
flour particles were mixed thoroughly before reinforcing of the
fibres. Four types of mixture were prepared with the variation
of wheat flour weights ranging from 1, 2, 3 and 4 g. The ratio of
epoxy resin and wheat flour particles was varied from 1 to 4%
by weight. The cross-plied E-glass fibre sheet was reinforced
in the mixture of epoxy resin and wheat flour particle. E-glass
fibre reinforced wheat flour filled epoxy resin composites plates
(3 mm thick) were moulded at room temperature by hand lay-up
technique. Cross-plied glass fibre reinforced epoxy resin com- Fig. 1. Photograph of (a) erosion test rig and (b) eroded surface of sample.
posite plate was also moulded without any particulate filler. The
castings were cured at room temperature overnight. The cured
composites plates exhibit fibre volume fraction of 46.5%. Suit- having dimensions according to the standards. The tensile test
able pieces of the above were prepared with suitable hardness, was performed on the universal testing machine and results were
tensile, erosion characterization for our experiments. analysed to calculate the tensile strength of composite samples.

2.2. Testing 2.2.2. Erosion test

2.2.1. Mechanical tests
Microhardness test is conducted on Shimadzu microhardness
tester (HMV-2 T). Indenter is made of diamond in the form of a
square based pyramid with an included angle of 136◦ between
opposite faces. The hardness tester is semiautomatic in which the
specimen surface is brought close to indenter, the preset load is
applied for some definite time and load is removed automatically.
The loads are slowly applied to avoid error due to inertia effects.
The time of load application and load duration can be controlled.
In the present study the load ranging from 10 to 100 g is applied
for the duration of 5 s and Vickers hardness number was obtained
for further studied.
The tension test is generally performed on flat specimens.
The most commonly used specimen geometries are the dog-
bone specimen and straight-sided specimen with end tabs. A
uniaxial load is applied through the ends. The ASTM standard
test method for tensile properties of fibre-resin composites has
the designation D3039-76. It recommends that the specimens
with fibres parallel to the loading direction should be 12.7 mm
wide and made with 6–8 plies. Length of the test section should
be 153 mm. The test-piece used here is of dog-bone type and
Erosion tests were performed in a commercial sand-blasting
chamber (Erosion Testing Rigs, Magnum Engineers, Bangalore,
India) equipped with an air compressor, air-drying unit, a mag-
netic particle feeder, an air particle mixing and accelerating
chamber (Fig. 1). Dry compressed air is mixed with the par-
ticles, which are fed at a constant rate from a conveyor belt type
feeder in the mixing chamber and then accelerated by passing the
mixture through a converging nozzle of 4 mm diameter. These
accelerated particles impact the specimen, held at various angles
with respect to the impacting particles using an adjustable sam-
ple holder. The feed rate of the particles is controlled by varying
the distance between the particle feeding hopper and belt drive.
Changing the pressure of the compressed air is given in the vari-
ation of the impact velocity of the particles. The velocity of the
eroding particles is determined using a rotating disc method.
In the present study silica sand was used as an erodent. Square
samples of size 30 mm × 30 mm with 3.2 mm of thickness were
cut from the plate for erosion tests. The conditions under which
erosion tests were carried out are listed in Table 1.
A standard test procedure was employed for each erosion test.
The samples were cleaned in acetone, dried and weighed to an
accuracy of 10−5 g using electronic balance. It was then eroded
284 V.K. Srivastava / Materials Science and Engineering A 435–436 (2006) 282–287

Table 1
Erosion test parameters
Erodent Silica sand

Erodent size (␮m) 150–250

Impingement angle (α, ◦ ) 30, 45, 60, 90
Impact velocity (m/s) 24, 35, 52
Erodent feed rate (g/min) 4
Test temperature RT
Nozzle to sample distance (mm) 10
Nozzle diameter (mm) 4

Fig. 3. Variation of tensile strength with weight percentage of wheat powder

filler.
in the test rig for 5 min and weighed again to determine weight
loss. The ratio of this weight loss to the weight of the erod-
ing particles (testing time × particle feed rate) is then computed
as the dimensionless incremental erosion rate. This procedure
is repeated till the erosion rate attains a constant steady-state
value. The impingement angles from 30 to 90◦ were obtained
by turning the sample holder. The particle velocity was varied
between 24 and 52 m s−1 by changing the nozzle air pressure.
Finally, to characterize the morphology of eroded surface and
to understand the mode of material removal, the eroded samples
were observed under scanning electron microscope. The eroded
samples were mounted on stubs with silver paste. To enhance the
conductivity of eroded samples, a thin film of silver was vacuum-
evaporated onto them before the photomicrographs were taken.
Fig. 4. Variation of density with weight percentage of wheat powder filler.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Effect of filler on specific properties
The GFRP filled wheat flour powder composites display dis-
tinct properties than the unfilled GFRP composite. Fig. 2 shows
that the microhardness of GFRP and wheat flour filled GFRP
reduces with the increase of load. In addition wheat flour filled
GFRP sample gives the lower microhardness values than the
GFRP composites. The variation in the observed behaviour is
attributed the presence of voids. The formation of air bubbles
and voids is practically unavoidable. The voids not only reduce
the stress bearing area but also act as stress raisers, which initi-
ate the cracks. The microhardness of wheat flour filled GFRP is
influenced by the efficient interfacial bonding [4]. This clearly
indicates that the tensile strength and density of GFRP are influ-
enced by the homogeneity of microstructure, which reduces the
tensile strength and density of GFRP with addition of wheat
flour filler as shown in Figs. 3 and 4. These results confirm that
the bulk rheological properties of the starch (wheat flour) filler
exerted greater influence than the epoxy resin filler interface on
the module [5].
3.2. Effect of filler on erosion wear
Figs. 5–8 show the erosion rates of all the materials as a
function of cumulative weight of impinging particles with dif-
ferent impinging angles ranging from 30◦ to 90◦ and velocity
24 m s−1 . These plots were obtained by determining the steady-
state of the weight loss. The result indicates that the erosion rate
initially increases from a low value to a high value and then
decreases to a low value and eventually to a constant value. In
some cases materials show an incubation period with mass gain
before steady-state erosion rate was established under constant
erosion conditions. The incubation period was observed at the
lowest impact velocity of 24 m s−1 . Otherwise the response of

Fig. 5. Variation of erosion rate with cumulative weight of impinging at impinge-

Fig. 2. Variation of Vicker’s microhardness with load. ment angle 30◦ and velocity 24 m s−1 .
 V.K. Srivastava / Materials Science and Engineering A 435–436 (2006) 282–287
Fig. 6. Variation of erosion rate with cumulative weight of impinging particles
at impingement angle 45◦ and velocity 24 m s−1 .
Fig. 7. Variation of erosion rate with cumulative weight of impinging particles
at impingement angle 60◦ and velocity 24 m s−1 .
the materials to the weight of erodent was acceleration, peaking,
deceleration and stabilization. All composite samples show sim-
ilar behaviour of a typical brittle material in which the erosion
rate increases with increase of cumulative weight of impinging
particles. GFRP sample shows higher value of erosion rates than
the 2 and 4 g wheat flour powder filled GFRP composites. The
comparison of Figs. 5–8 indicates that a strong dependence of
the erosive wear exists as a function of the relative microstruc-
ture of the composites. This is because of the fact that when a
composite surface is eroded by solid particles, the material lost
is composed of fibre and matrix. The increase of the solid par-
ticle erosion resistance of the GFRP composite is increased as
the matrix weight fraction. To the contrary, the tensile strength
of the composite and the elastic modulus weaken as the epoxy
matrix is filled with wheat flour.
Fig. 8. Variation of erosion rate with cumulative weight of impinging particles
at impingement angle 90◦ and velocity 24 m s−1 .
285
Fig. 9. Variation of erosion rate with impingement angle at velocity 35 m s−1
and cumulative weight of impinging particles 220 g.
Fig. 9 shows that the erosion rate increases with rise in parti-
cles velocity but erosion rate of GFRP is reduced with increase
of weight percentage of wheat flour powder. However, erosion
rate is strongly affected by the variation of impingement angle
of the particles and it is observed that the GFRP composite gives
higher value than the 2 and 4 g wheat flour powder filled GFRP
composites. The erosion rates increases with increase of particle
velocity as shown in Fig. 10. The velocity of the erosive parti-
cles has a very strong effect on erosion rate. It was found that the
erosion rate follows power law bahaviour with particle veloc-
ity R ␣ Vn . The velocity exponent ‘n’ was found in the range of
1.6–5.05. These results show typical erosion curves (Fig. 10)
for ductile materials and the peaks of erosion rates are located
near impingement angle 60◦ for all the samples because cutting
mechanism is dominant in erosion. This is semi-ductile erosion
behaviour because of peaks of erosion rates are near the 60◦ . On
the other the wheat flour particles are used as reinforcement in a
typical brittle material, so that erosion is mainly caused by such
damage as microcracking due to the impact of solid particles.
Also it is clear from figures that erosion rate at 60◦ is nearly
twice of that at 30◦ . The erosion rate for a high impact angle is
dominated by the kinetic energy loss of solid particles. In wheat
flour filled, there exists interface between a matrix material and
fibre that would be mechanically weak and sustain greater dam-
age than a neat GFRP composite. It is also observed that damage
increases with decrease of the interfacial strength. That is why
the erosion rate of the GFRP is larger than that of the wheat flour
filled GFRP composites.
The mass of impacting particles per unit area and time are
controlling parameters of erosion rate. Theoretically the erosion
Fig. 10. Variation of erosion rate with velocity of particle at impingement angle
60◦ and cumulative weight of impinging particles 120 g.
286 V.K. Srivastava / Materials Science and Engineering A 435–436 (2006) 282–287

Fig. 12. Bar diagram of steady-state erosion rate of all composites at impinge-
ment angle 90◦ and different velocity.

Fig. 11. Variation of erosion efficiency with velocity of particles at impingement

angle 90◦ .
rate (ER) should be independent of the mass of particles striking
a target since it is assumed that all the particles strike the target
with the same velocity and angle of impact, and that the proper-
ties of the target pertinent to erosion are independent of particle
flux. In practice, however, significant effects of particle flux on
measured erosion rate are observed [5]. It has been reported that
erosion rate is proportional to the flux rate up to a certain limit-
ing value of the flux rate. This limit is believed to be the result
of interference between rebounding and arriving particles [6].
erosion takes place by sapling and removal of large chunks of
material by interlinking lateral or radial cracks, then the erosion
efficiency is expected to be even greater than 1.
Also, from the results of microhardness tests it is clear that
the hardness of GFRP composite is more than that of wheat
flour filled GFRP composites. The harder the material, the
larger is fraction of crater volume that is removed and hence the

3.3. Erosion efficiency

To describe the nature and erosion mechanism a parameter

called erosion efficiency (η) was proposed by Sundararajan et
al. [12]. This parameter indicates the efficiency with which the
volume that is displaced by impacting erodent particle is actually
removed. The erosion efficiency (η) can be obtained by the given
equation
2RH
η= (1)
ρV 2
where R is the erosion rate, H the hardness, ρ the density of the
target material and V is the velocity of impact. Fig. 11 shows
that the erosion efficiency of GFRP decreases with increase of
particle velocity whereas erosion efficiency of wheat flour filled
GFRP increases with increase of particle velocity. The erosion
efficiencies vary from 0.178 to 6.04% for different impact veloc-
ities studied. Thus, it can be concluded that erosion takes place
by microploughing and microcutting. The lower erosion effi-
ciencies of composites with 4 g wheat flour at different impact
velocities indicate a better erosion resistance. The higher values
of erosion efficiencies of glass-epoxy indicate its poor erosion
resistance.
The above parameter can be used to identify the brittle and
ductile erosion response of various materials. For example, ideal
microploughing involving just the displacement of material from
the crater without any fracture (and hence no erosion) will have
zero erosion efficiency. Alternately, in the case of ideal micro-
cutting, η will be unity. In case erosion occurs by the formation Fig. 13. SEM micrographs of (a) GFRP and (b) 4 g wheat powder GFRP com-
of a lip and its subsequent fracture, erosion efficiency will be in posites eroded with silica sand of size 150–250 ␮m, V = 52 m s−1 at impingement
the range 0–1. In contrast, as happens with brittle material, if the angle 60◦ (magnification 1000×).
 V.K. Srivastava / Materials Science and Engineering A 435–436 (2006) 282–287
erosion rate is more. It is clear from Fig. 12 that 4 g wheat flour
filled GFRP shows the lowest erosion rate at particle velocity
of 24 m s−1 . This may be due to the restriction of debonding
between matrix and fibers, which is seen in Fig. 13(b). From
SEM observations of eroded surfaces, it appears that composites
under consideration exhibit several stages of the erosion and
material removal process. First, there is local removal of resin
material from the impacted surface; which results in exposure
of the fibers to the erosive environment, as seen in Fig. 13(a).
Also, the micrograph reveals that solid sand particles impact on
the fibers and causes the fibers to break owing to the formation
of cracks perpendicular to their length. These cracks across the
fiber are caused by bending due to the impact of these particles
on the unsupported fibers. Bending is possible because the
matrix resin surrounding and supporting the fibers have been
removed.
Further continuation of erosion by sand particle impacts
resulted in damage to the interface between the fibers and the
resin matrix. This damage was characterized by the separation
and detachment of broken fibers from the resin matrix as shown
in Fig. 13. The observed behaviour of these materials can be
attributed to the following mechanism. It is well known that the
fibers in composites subjected to particle flow, break in bending
[3]. In case of an impact having a parallel component of veloc-
ity with respect to the fiber orientation bending requires particle
indentation into the composites. The indentation involved com-
pressive stresses and resistance to micro bending is high. Thus,
there is a local removal of resin material from impacted surface,
which results in the exposure of the fibers. For transverse particle
impact resistance to lateral component of the bending moment
is lower and bundles of fibers get bent and break easily. Also
in case of transverse erosion high interfacial tensile stresses are
generated by particle impacts. This causes intensive debonding
and breakage of the fibers, which are not supported by the matrix
[9].
287
4. Conclusion
Based on the experimental results, following conclusions are
drawn.
(i) Inclusion of wheat flour filler in GFRP composite consid-
erably decreases the value of hardness, tensile strength, and
density. The erosive wear of 2 g wheat flour filled GFRP
gives the lower value as it restricts fiber-matrix debonding.
GFRP without any filler show the highest erosion rate due
to weak bonding strength.
(ii) The influence of impingement angle on erosive wear of
all composites under consideration exhibits semi-ductile
erosive wear behaviour with maximum wear rate at 60◦
impingement angle. The erosion efficiency varies from
0.178 to 6%, which indicates that the erosion takes place by
microploughing and microcutting. Therefore, this parame-
ter can be used to identify the behaviour of materials under
erosion test.
References
[1] N.M. Barkoula, J.K. Kocsis, Wear 252 (2002) 80–87.
[2] J.L. Willett, F.C. Felker, Polymer 46 (2005) 3035–3042.
[3] N.M. Edwards, J.E. Dexter, M.G. Scanlon, Cereal Chem. 79 (2002)
850–856.
[4] B.D. Sulaiman, W.R. Morrison, J. Cereal Sci. 12 (1990) 53–61.
[5] K.V. Pool, C.K.H. Dharan, I. Finnie, Wear 107 (1986) 1–12.
[6] S.M. Kulkarni, Kishore, Polym. Polym. Composites 9 (2001) 25–30.
[7] N. Miyazaki, T. Takeda, J. Composite Mater. 27 (1993) 21–31.
[8] N. Miyazaki, T. Hamao, J. Composite Mater. 28 (1994) 871–883.
[9] G.P. Tilly, W. Sage, Wear 16 (1970) 447–465.
[10] Y.A. Pallout, S.K. Hovis, J.E. Talia, Wear 24 (1990) 195–200.
[11] U.S. Tewari, A.P. Harsa, A.M. Hauger, K. Friedrich, Composites Sci. Tech-
nol. 63 (2003) 549–557.
[12] G. Sundararajan, B.V. Roy, Wear 140 (1990) 369–381.