The Effect of Applied Load on Tribological Behaviors of Potassium Titanate Whiskers Reinforced PEEK Composites Under Water Lubricated Condition

The tribological behavior of potassium titanate whiskers (PTW) reinforced polyetheretherketone (PEEK) composite has been investigated using the pin-on-disk configuration at different applied loads under water lubricated condition. It was found that the incorporation of the PTW into PEEK would achieve high wear resistance and low friction coefficient at low load. When the applied load increased up to 4 MPa, only the composite filled with 5 wt% PTW showed a significant improvement in the frictional reduction and wear resistance; on the contrary, a rapid increasing of the friction coefficient was observed for the composites of high PTW content. In the meantime, the severe wear loss occurred along with the sharply increasing temperature. This sudden deterioration of the wear resistance should be attributed to the change of the wear mechanism. The main wear mechanism of mild fatigue for the neat PEEK and mild abrasive wear for the 5 wt% PTW filled composite did not alter with the rising of the load. In this case, no transfer film could be detected on the counterpart surface. However, for the high PTW filled composites, the wear mechanism changed from the mild abrasive wear at low applied load to the severe fatigue wear at high load. Large amounts of wear debris were generated by the fatigue-delamination of the composite surface. And then, the debris served as third-body abrasives during the subsequent sliding process and the wear mechanism changed to severe abrasive wear. And unexpectedly, a thick and lumpy transfer film was formed on the counterface.