Characteristics of fretting wear resistance for unfilled engineering thermoplastics

Fretting wear testings were conducted with twelve unfilled engineering thermoplastics against a steel (E 52100, AISI) ball under two different amplitudes conditions. Cast iron (HT25-47) and carbon steel (C1045, AISI) were used as references. The results showed that the tested materials could be arranged in order of ascending wear resistance as follows: PPS, ABS, PSU, PC, PTFE, MCPA, PA1010, HT25-47, PP, C1045, UHMWPE, HDPE, POM, and PI. This arrangement only altered slightly when the testing amplitude was changed. In general, plastics did not produce wear on metallic counterpart, however, wear evidences were found on the steel balls paired with PSU, MCPA and POM. The interpretation will show how the results are connected with the polymeric structures and some of the important intrinsic properties of the polymers, i.e. glass transition temperature Tg, melting point Tm and dielectric constant ɛ.