Tribological Behaviors of Some Materials in Sea Water

Abstract

A blue revolution marked with exploiting ocean is springing up all over the world. The tide of ocean exploitation has also attracted significant attentions of researchers to the application performances including the tribological behaviors of various materials in ocean environment. Ocean tribology, a new research field of tribology, is being established and developed. In this paper, the tribological behaviors of UHMWPE and PTFE as well as other three PTFE-based composites were investigated in sea water, and compared with those in pure water. When sliding against GCr15, the friction coefficients and wear rates of five materials in sea water are greater than those in pure water, this attributes to the decrease of medium lubricating effect and the increase of plowing effect of steel to materials as the results of the increase of counterface roughness caused by the corrosion of sea water to the counterface. Such wear model can be called indirect corrosive wear. While sliding against Ni-Cr-WC alloy, the friction coefficients and wear rates of five materials in sea water are lower than those in pure water, this attributes to the deposition of Mg(OH)2 and CaCO3 on the anti-corrosion counterface. The deposition film has some boundary lubricating effect and inhibits the direct contact of sliding surfaces.