Wear Resistance Testing of Polymer Materials

In recent years, due to the trend in designing of machines and machine elements, polymers have taken a significant role as materials for parts like cams and gears, as a substitution for conventional materials [1]. Additionally, polymers are extensively used as materials for manufacturing of parts for mining equipment,conveyor lines, rotary valves, etc. [2]. In all these applications, polymers are exposed to abrasive wear.

Abrasive wear is a wear mechanism generated by the sliding of a hard material over a softer material under load, while surface asperities of the harder material tend to remove the softer material [3]. In general, abrasive wear can be divided into two major groups due to the mechanisms of generation: two body abrasion,and three body abrasion [3]. Two body abrasion occurs in direct contact of two counter surfaces when one is significantly softer than the other one, while three body abrasion occurs when hard particles get trapped between two sliding surfaces. Some estimation say that abrasive wear contributes up to 60% of total costs caused
by wear.

Since polymers became important technical materials in modern engineering, numerous papers referred to these in the last decades.The first article in history summarizing results of polymer abrasion was published in 1969[5]. The following years brought a wide variety of experiments related to abrasive wear of polymers [6-13]. Furthermore, a wide variety of experiments has been performed on polymer composites, reinforced polymers and epoxy resins [14-16]. Most of these experiments have been performed on conventional pin-on-disc testing setups with sand paper as counterbody to the polymer pins (two body abrasion), as well as on the ASTM G65 abrasion tester with different testing setups (steel or rubber wheel, Three body abrasion). Attempts to investigate abrasion resistance of polymer materials on micro scale have also been done [17]. Most of these studies can be seen as a summary in several review articles.

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