Tribological Performance of PTFE Filled with 40% Bronze against Different Surface Textured Patterns

Abstract

PTFE, a thermoplastic polymer is having low friction coefficient, excellent corrosion resistance, chemical inertness and wide range of service temperature. Due to its poor wear and abrasion resistance, its applications are widely limited. The wear resistance of PTFE can be significantly improved by addition of suitable filler material. Bronze filled PTFE composites produces very thick, uniform and adherent transfer films of both PTFE and Bronze. Surface Texturing is a phenomenon to reduce contact area between two mating surfaces which affects friction and wear behaviour of material. Therefore, in this research, the friction and wear behaviour of PTFE composite filled with 40% Bronze particles at varying load and sliding velocity was studied. Test pins of PTFE composite were tested against textured stainless steel disc under dry and wet sliding conditions using Pin-On –Disc tribometer (TR-20LE) at NTP. There were three types of textured patterns made on the disc i.e. circular, elliptical and square. It was observed that the total wear loss due to friction and wear increases with increase in load as well as increase in sliding velocity. The lowest wear loss was found for PTFE composite filled with 40% Bronze, when circular textured pattern was used under wet sliding condition.