Tribological behavior of fast-carbonized PAN/phenolic-based carbon/carbon composite and method for improving same

One purpose of the present study is to evaluate the tribological behavior of a fast-carbonized (1000 °C/min) C/C composite. One other purpose of the study is to enhance the tribological performance of the composite by applying a post-treatment comprising re-impregnation of a carbonaceous additive-doped liquid precursor. The results indicate that average coefficient of friction (COF) values of non-post-treated composites prepared with three different carbonization rates (1, 100 and 1000 °C/min) are similar (0.40–0.45). The average wear rate of samples carbonized at 1000 °C/min is about twice as large as samples carbonized at 1 and 100 °C/min. Great majority of the samples demonstrate an increase in density and a decrease in porosity after the post-treatment. Pitch-group samples generally have larger changes in density and porosity than furan-group samples. After the post-treatment, all samples demonstrate decreases in both COF and specific wear rate coefficient. Pitch-group samples generally exhibit lower wear rate than furan-group samples. Samples post-treated with pitch/carbon black and pitch/mesophase pitch demonstrate the lowest wear rates among all samples tested (only half that of untreated samples carbonized at 1 °C/min), while still maintaining relatively high COF values (close to 0.4). These results indicate that an appropriate post-treatment, especially a pitch treatment, may dramatically improve the tribological performance of fast-carbonized C/C composite.