Studies on abrasive wear of carbon fibre (short) reinforced polyamide composites

Abstract

This paper reports the results of the abrasive wear investigations of various composites of polyamide (nylon 6,6) reinforced with increasing amounts of carbon fibre against various abrasive papers under dry conditions. The object was to study the influence of parameters such as: amount of fibre, its orientation, effect of solid lubricant (PTFE), and other experimental parameters eg load and abrading particle size. It was observed that wear rates increased rapidly with increasing fibre concentration. A combination of particulate filler (PTFE) and carbon fibre proved to be very detrimental to abrasive wear resistance. Load, abrading particle size and fibre orientation were observed to be important factors in these studies. Efforts are made to correlate wear behaviour with appropriate mechanical properties. Ratner/Lancaster plots did not show linearity. Instead, a proportional rise in wear was noticed with an increase in e −1 , where e is ultimate elongation, with the exception of one composite. Worn surfaces were studied with a SEM to give a greater insight into the wear mechanisms.