Assessment of the Tribological Properties of the Steel/Polymer/Steel Sandwich Material LITECOR

The article presents the results of tribological investigations into the steel/polymer/steel sandwich material LITECOR (R) developed by ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe for applications in the automotive industry. Friction tests were carried out by means of a strip drawing test with the use of a special tribotester mounted on a uniaxial tensile test machine. The influence of sheet deformation on the value of the coefficient of friction (COF) was considered. For this purpose, the samples were subjected to a pre-deformation of 4%, 8% and 12%. Friction tests were carried out with different force values and under different friction conditions, i.e., in dry friction conditions and lubrication of the sheet surface with L-AN 46 machine oil. The highest values of COF were observed for as-received sheets. In contrast, apart from the friction process under the conditions of the lowest force analysed, the lowest value of the COF was observed for pre-strained sheets with a deformation of 12%. The lubrication efficiency of the pre-strained strip specimens with epsilon = 4% was between 10.5% and 16.3%, with a trend of increasing lubrication efficiency with increasing force. For pre-strained sheets with deformation epsilon = 12%, there was a trend of decreasing effectiveness from 14.9% to 9.03% with an increase in force.