Wear Particle Formation of Polymers Against Smooth Hardened Steel Counterfaces

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Abstract
Previous work in the literature has demonstrated the application of a non-Hertzian contact modeling and stress calculation approach for polyetheretherketone (PEEK) sliding on smooth soft steel counter-faces in the three-pin-on-disk configuration. In this investigation, the non-Hertzian model was applied to PEEK, acrylobutadiene-styrene (ABS), and polyamide-imide (PAI) pins after sliding against smooth hardened steel counterfaces. The experimentally determined wear particle thicknesses for PEEK and ABS display a correlation with the location of a relative maximum subsurface von Mises stress. For PAI, wear particles of measurable size could not be collected due to the very low wear rate and due to the formation and adherence of a thin transfer film on the counterface during sliding. Fatigue/delamination was believed to be the dominant wear mechanism due to the observed wear particle morphology. In this investigation, the Paris law was used in conjunction with wear test data and the observed fatigue/delamination wear morphology, and it was found that the experimental wear rates were of the same order of magnitude as the estimated wear rates using a simple crack propagation and wear particle formation estimation approach.