Abstract
Aromatic thermosetting polyester (ATSP)- and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE)-blended composites have been shown to exhibit improved tribological performance with low wear and low friction. In this article, pure ATSP films were coated on aluminum substrates and tested as a potential protective tribological coating. The tribological performance of this coating was tested against steel, using pure sliding sphere-on-disk experiments. A fluoroadditive powder (solid lubricant) was also added to further enhance the ATSP film wear and friction properties. For comparison, a commercially available PTFE-based coating was tested under the same conditions. Results show that the ATSP/fluoroadditive film has comparable coefficient of friction to the commercial coating, but significantly lower wear. Surface analysis techniques were employed to investigate the low-friction and low-wear mechanisms seen with the ATSP/fluoroadditive. Specifically TOF-SIMS depth-profiling showed that there is a high density of fluorine element within the wear track and penetrates well below the surface of the wear track.
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Acknowledgments
Surface analyses were performed at the Center for Microanalysis of Materials (CMM), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), which is partially supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under Grant DEFG02-91-ER45439. The authors would like to acknowledge Dr. T. P. Spila and Ms. V. L. Petrova, CMM, UIUC for their help with the surface analytical studies, and Dr. N. G. Demas and Mr. E. Escobar Nunez, Microtribodynamics Laboratory, UIUC for their help with the tribological experiments.
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Zhang, J., Polycarpou, A.A. & Economy, J. An Improved Tribological Polymer-Coating System for Metal Surfaces. Tribol Lett 38, 355–365 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11249-010-9615-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11249-010-9615-3