Enhancement of tribological performance of PTFE/aramid fabric liner under high-temperature and heavy-load through incorporation of microcapsule/CF multilayer composite structure

Abstract

Liners suffer from low service life under high-temperature and heavy-load conditions, hindering their widespread use in aerospace applications. A novel strategy of incorporating polyaryl ether sulfone/polymethylphenlsiloxane (PES/PMPS) microcapsules and carbon fibers (CFs) into the polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE)/aramid fabric liner was used. At the micro-scale level, the worn surface morphology and the transfer film morphology were analyzed to reveal the tribological mechanisms. At the nano-scale level, molecular dynamics simulation was used to analyze the formation mechanism of the transfer film. The results showed that the friction coefficient and wear rate of the liner with microcapsule/CF multilayer structure were reduced by 17 % and 24 %, respectively. The incorporation of microcapsule/CF multilayer structure can be effectively applied to enhance the tribological performance of liners in harsh operating conditions.