Title : ( Fabrication and wear behavior investigation of the carbon/epoxycomposites based on wood using artificial neural networks )
Authors: Hossein Vafaeenezhad , Seyed Mojtaba Zebarjad , Jalil Vahdati Khaki ,Abstract
Since wood is the main component of the applied raw materials, it can be used as matrix in carbon composites, also it can be taken into consideration as a cost effective advanced application and have this potential to suppress many expensive fabrication and finishing procedures. Wood samples from Oak tree (Quercus suber) were heated at different temperatures to produce porous carbon templates. Subsequently, the Carbonized wood was infiltrated with an epoxy in order to fabricate the final carbon/epoxy composite. Scanning electron microscopy was used to elucidate parameters affecting on microstructure and wear properties of products. In this context, artificial neural networks (ANN) and design of experiments method (DOE) was implemented to analyze the wear performance of a new class of cellulose based composites. This work indicates that epoxy shows good reinforcement characteristics as it improves the sliding wear resistance of the carbon matrix and that factors like carbonization temperature, sliding distance and normal load are the important factors affecting the wear behaviors.