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pps proceeding
Symposium: Rheology & Advanced Characterization
Poster Presentation
 
 

Studies on tribological behaviour of PEEK and PE-UHMW

Petrica Marcela (1)*, Duscher Bernadette (1), Koch Thomas (1), Archodoulaki Vasiliki Maria (1)

(1) TU Wien - Vienna - Austria

The tribological properties of Poly-ether-ether-ketone (PEEK) and Ultra-high-molecular-weight-polyethylene (PE-UHMW) were studied systematically in a 2-body sliding system using a ball on plate tribometer. The surface’s roughness (Ra) was changed for both PEEK and PE-UHMW in order to understand how this parameter affects the wear response and formation of wear mechanism. During the experiments, coefficient of friction (COF) was measured and correlated with the wear mechanisms. The frictional behavior of PEEK seems to develop in 3 stages wears PE-UHMW seems to have a stable frictional behavior throughout the entire testing period. This might be due to different wear mechanisms that occur under the same testing conditions. It was observed that material’s mechanical properties plays a major role in how wear mechanisms develop, influencing frictional behavior. Furthermore, changing the surface’s roughness, allowed to observe that PEEK shifts its wear rate behavior when roughness is reversed. The wear rate seems to decrease with the increase of testing time for the samples with low Ra values whereas for high Ra values the samples registered an increase in wear rate with the increase of testing time. In case of PE-UHMW, the change in roughness did not change the trend of the wear rate.