Abstract
The mechanism of hard surfaces worn by soft polymers is not clearly understood. In this paper, a new hypothesis has been proposed, it holds that the stress acting on the hard surface under certain working conditions is the main reason for wear of the hard surface by a soft polymer. The hypothesis was investigated by changing the contact form between tribo-pairs. For this, friction tests between six polymer spheres and smooth, rough, and inclined monocrystalline silicon surfaces were carried out. The results show that for the same tribo-pair, the silicon surface will not be worn in some contact forms, but in other contact forms it will be worn. We believe the wear of hard surface by a soft polymer is the result of the combined stress state action on the hard surface.
Highlights
In recent years, polymer has been widely used in engineering because of its light-weight, high specific strength, corrosion resistance, and low friction coefficient [1, 2]
It can be seen that the surface of the silicon wafer remains flat and intact after the wear test with PS, PP, and polyamide 66 (PA 66), and there was no wear on the surface
During 10 minutes of friction test, the six polymers did not cause any wear on the surface of hard silicon wafers, the softer polymers do not cause the wear of harder surface, which are consistent with common knowledge
Summary
Polymer has been widely used in engineering because of its light-weight, high specific strength, corrosion resistance, and low friction coefficient [1, 2]. Since the wear of hard surfaces by soft polymers becomes an established physical phenomenon, a series of theories have been put forward to explain this unusual phenomenon Among these theories, there are four primary ones: 1) The mechanism of adhesive wear caused by a polymer–metal reaction was proposed by Vinogradov et al [11], and developed by Zhang et al and Wilches et al [12, 13]. It is thought that when a polymer with active functional groups rubs against the metal surface, the oxidation or heating effects cause the polymer to degrade into highly reactive low-molecular weight compounds that react with the metal surface This results in a reduction of the wear resistance of the reaction layer and the metal surface will be more
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