Experimental study of physical, mechanical and tribological behaviour of polyester/kota stone dust composite

Abstract In the industry of Kota stone, a significant amount of waste material is produced at the time of manufacturing. This waste is typically discarded on the local site, which is then carried away by rainwater and air, leading to environmental deterioration. The current study focuses on utilizing the waste i.e. Kota stone dust (KSD) as the filler in the polyester resin for the development of a polymeric composite. Various composite sets with different micro-particulate contents through open moulding technique are prepared and its characterization is reported. The density and void percentage of polyester increase with KSD loading. The hardness and compressive strength increased to 83.7 Shore-D number and 102.7 MPa respectively, at 40 wt% KSD. A tensile and flexural modulus also increases with KSD loading showing an improvement of 72.8% and 64.1% respectively. Contrary to that, the highest tensile and flexural strength was recorded at 25 wt% and 30 wt% KSD loading respectively, which is 29.2% and 28.8% higher than unfilled polyester. Sliding wear tests were conducted following Taguchi’s experimental design. The experiments revealed that the filler content had the most significant impact on the specific rate. The study of surface morphology of the worn surfaces provided an insight into the wear mechanisms of the composites such as craters, cracks, wear debris, and wear track formation at different sliding conditions. The composites’ wear response prediction for various test conditions within and beyond the experimental boundary was conducted by successfully implementing a model based on artificial neural networks.