Geometrical Aspects of the Tribological Properties of Graphite Fiber Reinforced Polyimide Composites

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Abstract
A Latin-square statistical experimental test design was used to evaluate the effect of temperature, load, and sliding speed on the tribological properties of graphite fiber reinforced polyimide (GFRPI) composite specimens. Hemispherically tipped composite riders were slid against 440C HT stainless steel disks. Comparisons were made to previous studies in which hemispherically tipped 400C HT stainless steel riders were slid against GFRPI composite disks and to studies in which GFRPI was used as a liner in plain spherical bearings. The results indicate that sliding surface geometry is especially important, in that different geometrics can give completely different friction and wear results. Load, temperature, and sliding distance were found to influence the friction and wear results but sliding speed was found to have little effect. Experiments on GFRPI riders with 10 weight percent additions of graphite fluoride showed that this addition had no effect on friction and wear.