Effect of carbon fibre reinforcement in the frictional behaviour of Peek in a water lubricated environment

Owing to the potential use of poly-ether-ether-ketone (Peek) and 30% carbon fibre reinforced Peek (Peek-CF30) for orthopaedic application it was decided to investigate the effect of carbon fibre reinforcement and the meaning of different variables, such as counterface roughness, sliding velocity and contact stress on frictional behaviour. A pin-on-disc Plint TE67 connected to a computer was used to measure the friction evolution under dynamic contact stress and sliding speed conditions, applied according to a sinusoidal function. This sinusoidal model tries to reproduce the human walking conditions on the hip joint system. The treatment of experimental results was based on Taguchi’s techniques and on the analysis of variance (ANOVA). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) X-ray microanalysis were made in a post test examination.