Influence of counterface roughness on the friction and wear of polytetrafluorethylene‐ and polyacetal‐based composites

The friction of various composites is generally little dependent upon the roughness. When the composites contain glass or carbon fibres, their wear rates are also little dependent upon the roughness. However, the wear rates of PTFE incorporating MoS2, graphite or bronze and polyacetal incorporating PTFE increase rapidly as the roughness increases beyond a certain critical value characteristic of each of these composites. The roughness-dependency of the wear rate is markedly affected by the transfer during sliding.