Epoxy resins possess favorable properties such as strong adhesion to many materials, good mechanical and electrical properties, relatively high chemical and thermal resistance, and a low price compared to advanced polymers such as polyetheretherketone (PEEK) and polyimide (PI), but they exhibit relatively high wear rates and coefficients of friction when dry-sliding against steel counterfaces.
This work presents a comprehensive study on the tribological characteristics of epoxy-based nano- composites under dry sliding and water lubricated sliding conditions. For this purpose, in the current study, PMCs are produced using an epoxy (EP) resin as matrix, reinforced with several types of nanoparticulates, typically, SiC, Al2O3 and graphite (Gr) nanoparticulates. These new Polymeric matrix nanocomposites (PMNCs) contained 2 and 4 vol. % of nanoparticulates having a mean particle size of 50 nm were prepared. The tribological behavior of such PMNCs was extensively investigated under both dry sliding and water lubricated conditions against a 316 stainless steel disc. The wear experiments were designed using the design of experiment (DoE) approach. The effect of the applied load, sliding velocity and sliding distance (sliding time) on the coefficient of friction (COF) and the wear rate (WR) of the epoxy PMCs were investigated. The worn surfaces of the PMNCs were investigated using scanning electron microscope (SEM). Generally, it has been found that the PMNCs have better tribological performance than the pure epoxy matrix at both dry sliding and water lubricating conditions. Nano-Gr reinforced epoxy composites exhibited lowest coefficient of friction when compared with the nano-SiC and nano-Al2O3 composites as well as the pure epoxy matrix under both dry sliding and water lubricating conditions
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