Thermo Tribological Characteristics of Particle and Network Reinforced Polymer Composites

Abstract

Polymeric materials have several beneficial properties and economic advantages compared to metals. In recent decades, polymers are widely used to produce machine components such as bushes, bearings, and gears, etc., However, the load-bearing capacity of these components are limited due to the low strength and stiffness. Wear is one of the major modes of failure in polymer machine components and is significantly influenced by the interface temperature. The friction between the contacting parts results in frictional heating and the low thermal conductivity of the polymer leads to heat accumulation near the contact surface. The polymeric materials soften with the raise in temperature and accelerate the wear process. Significant work had been done by researchers to enhance the thermal conductivity of the polymeric material through the addition of fillers/reinforcements in various sizes and geometric shapes. Although loading filler/reinforcement increases the overall thermal conductivity of the composite material, it increases the cost and complicates the material processing. Hence, there is a need to enhance the thermal conductivity of polymer composites with minimal reinforcements without sacrificing the mechanical strength and stiffness. Therefore, the scope of this research work is to develop a design approach that leads to minimal heat in combination with improved tribological performance and service life of the machine elements made of polymers. It is proposed that the reinforcements be only used at the functionally needed regions (hence called selective-reinforcement) reducing the reinforcement volume fraction.