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Microscale Abrasive Wear of Polymeric Materials
Microscale Abrasive Wear of Polymeric Materials
Abstract
Polymeric materials are now commonly employed as components in mechanical devices, and as such are subject to wear. Abrasive wear
of polymer components may occur either by sliding against a rough counterface or by abrasion by hard particles. Whilst previous work has
considered the three body abrasion of polymers using large abrasives common in the ASTM G65 test, this work presents results concerning
three-body abrasion of polymers with a fine (25 m) SiC abrasive. The test employs a rotating sphere as the counterface against which
the test specimen is loaded with abrasive slurry being entrained. It is demonstrated that the test provides valid results for all polymer types
only at low loads which aid slurry entrainment. Test parameters are identified where the test results yield little concerning true material
behaviour, reflecting instead something of the test characteristics. Under conditions which are deemed to yield results reflecting the true
wear rates of the polymers, the expected spherical cap geometry of the wear scar is established very early in the test sequence. A range of
polymers has been examined. The samples are well discriminated by the test, and a reasonable correlation with both the Martens hardness
and the RatnerLancaster factor (1/ b b ) is found.
2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Test methodology; Martens hardness; RatnerLancaster correlation; Plastics
1. Introduction
Polymeric materials are being increasingly used in a wide
number of applications where resistance to wear is important. These range from its use as a bearing material (in
applications such as machinery parts and biomedical joint
replacements) to its use as a glazing material where damage
results in loss of optical properties. Polymers are ideal materials for bearing applications due to their general resistance
to corrosion, galling and seizure, their tolerance to small
misalignments and shock loading and their low coefficients
of friction; as glazing materials, their low density and high
toughness (compared to traditional glass) along with high
transparency are desirable properties. In many applications,
polymers may be subjected to abrasive wear, often due to
contaminants within a system, and such abrasion may result
in loss of function.
The abrasive wear of polymers and polymer-based composites is the subject of a large body of literature. A number
of test methods have been employed; both two-body and
three-body abrasion have been examined, the former with
both abrasive papers and rough metal counterfaces. Most
test programmes have employed two-body abrasion tests
Corresponding author. Tel.: +44-115-951-3760;
fax: +44-115-951-3764.
E-mail address: philip.shipway@nottingham.ac.uk (P.H. Shipway).
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0043-1648/03/$ see front matter 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0043-1648(03)00106-6
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Table 1
Properties of polymers examined in this study
Polymer type
Abbreviation
Tensile breaking
stress ( b ) (MPa)
Tensile breaking
strain (b ) (MPa)
Wear coefficient
(103 mm3 N1 m1 )
Martens hardness
(HM ) (MPa)
HDPE
PC
PETG
PMMA
PP
PS
PVC
32
72
50
70
40
40
30
800
150
54
4
100
7
33
2.4
8.9
8.5
26.3
8.5
18.2
10.2
29.5
48.8
56.2
103.9
28.4
79.4
59.6
to the product of b and b . Other models have been proposed and Budinski [4] examined five such models. He
indicated that the correlations proposed by all the models
between the abrasive wear behaviour and other relevant
properties of twenty-one polymeric materials was poor.
Other workers have also demonstrated poor correlation between experimental data and one or more of the models
[7,8]. Larsen-Basse [7] argued that the mechanisms of wear
differed depending upon the polymer type. For example,
in PMMA, two-body grooving wear resulted from abrasion
with SiC paper with tearing and cracking in the grooves;
however, in ductile polypropylene, grooving still occurred,
but unlike PMMA, no tearing and cracking was observed.
In his review paper, Briscoe [2] concludes that the models
suppose a certain mechanism of material removal to prevail, and that changes in mechanism will tend to make the
model predictions invalid.
Most of the published literature in this area which has concerned abrasion against particulates has examined behaviour
with particles normally greater than 100 m in size. However, Roberts and Chang [9] indicated that the mechanism of
wear of the polymers examined in their study changed as the
size of the abrasive particles dropped below approximately
10 m. More recently, a number of workers [1,1012] have
employed a micro-scale abrasion test to examine the behaviour of polymeric materials with abrasives of the order of
4 m in size. In this test method, abrasion is produced by the
rotation of a ball (with no translation) against a flat surface
of the test material with an abrasive slurry being entrained
into the contact zone. This results in wear of the test material, with the material removed being in the form of a spherical cap of the same geometry as the ball. In a polymeric
material, the wear scar would normally be up to approximately 3 mm in diameter and 60 m deep. In cases where
the properties of polymer may vary with depth from a surface (due to, for example, environmental degradation), the
relatively shallow wear scar allows the abrasion resistance
to be easily examined as a function of depth. Also, such a
test allows the investigation of the behaviour of thin polymer coatings (such as paints) whereas most other tests require substantially thicker samples. The micro-abrasion test
has so far only been applied to a limited range of polymeric
materials, namely, ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene
(UHMWPE), polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) and paint
systems. The current paper examines the micro-scale abrasion behaviour of a range of polymeric materials in order
to further understand the mechanisms of wear dominant in
these materials when examined in this way.
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rotated around its pivot until the sample came into contact
with the ball. A load was applied via a dead-weight system;
the loads applied varied from 0.5 to 4.0 N. The ball was
rotated about a horizontal axis parallel to the plane of the
specimen surface while abrasive slurry was dripped onto
the ball and entrained into the gap between the ball and
specimen resulting in wear of the specimen. Specimen wear
results in an impression, which takes the form of a spherical cap with a geometry similar to that of the ball. In light
of previous research on UHMWPE [12], 25.4 mm diameter
nylon balls (Du Pont Zytel PA66 balls supplied by Dejay
Distribution Ltd., Wokingham, UK) were employed in this
work in order to ensure good entrainment of particles into
the wear zone. The microabrasion tests were conducted
with a slurry of SiC (grade C5, F1200, approximately 4 m
particle size, Washington Mills Ltd., Manchester) suspended in distilled water and delivered to the ball at a rate
of approximately 38 l s1 . The slurry employed was at a
concentration of approximately 17.2 vol.% SiC. An SEM
micrograph of the abrasive particles (Fig. 2) clearly shows
their highly angular morphology. The ball-specimen sliding
speed was maintained at 0.112 m s1 throughout the tests
(this was at the top end of the range examined by Rutherford and Hutchings [13] where they demonstrated that wear
rate was independent of sliding speed) and was chosen to
minimise the time required for testing. A new ball was used
for each test, but the ball was run in against a mild steel test
coupon for 200 revolutions before being employed in the
test to ensure that its surface was reproducible [14]. Tests
were run for a range of sliding distances ranging from 1 to
100 revolutions of the ball. The wear rates quoted are the
average of three separate tests.
Examination of the wear scars following testing was made
by optical microscopy (Nikon Optiphot) to allow measurement of the scar diameter and to check the roundness of
the scar. To enable the volume of the wear scar to be calculated, spherical cap geometry of the wear scar was assumed
(as has generally been demonstrated to be the case [10,13]).
The volume, V, is related to the depth, d, of the wear scar
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piece itself, with wear rate being instead governed by abrasive entrainment. For the polymers which did exhibit the formation of ridges in the wear scars at high loads, two regimes
may be defined, namely, one where ridging does not occur
and one where ridging does occur. A number of tests across
the range of polymers were performed to examine the development of wear volume with sliding distance; behaviour was
only examined where ridging did not occur. It was found that
a linear increase in wear volume with sliding distance was
generally observed; Fig. 5 shows two examples of such behaviour for PMMA. It can be seen that in these cases, wear is
proportional to sliding distance even at small distances (i.e.
there is little evidence of any running-in behaviour). Fig. 6
shows SEM images of the surface of PMMA following wear
under a load of 1.0 N as a function of sliding distance (these
Fig. 4. Detail of scar in PMMA following wear under a 2 N load for 100
ball revolutions: (a) SEM micrograph of ridge within wear scar (sliding
direction from top to bottom); (b) profile across scar showing geometry
of ridge.
Fig. 5. Wear volume of PMMA vs. sliding distance under two applied
loads.
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Fig. 6. Detailed morphology of wear surface of PMMA following microabrasion under 1.0 N load as a function of sliding distance: (a) 1 rev (0.080 m);
(b) 5 rev (0.399 m); (c) 20 rev (1.596 m); (d) 100 rev (7.98 m). Sliding direction from top to bottom in all cases.
images correspond to one set of data in Fig. 5). As the number of revolutions increased the surface became more worn,
as expected. After just one revolution, there was little evidence of directionality in the wear scar, with pitting as the
predominant wear mechanism (Fig. 6a). At greater sliding
distances, there was evidence for wear due to both particle
grooving (parallel lines) and particle rolling (pitting) [16].
It may be argued that three-body wear with rolling particle motion predominates at long sliding distances (Fig. 6d).
Fig. 7 shows profiles through the centres of the wear scars
perpendicular to the direction of sliding (PMMA, 1.0 N applied load) generated by both one and five ball revolutions.
Neither of these scars exhibited ridging. For each scar, the
profile predicted on the assumption that the wear scar is a
spherical cap with the same radius of curvature as the nylon
ball is also presented. It is notable that even after just one
revolution of the ball, a wear scar almost 5 m deep has been
developed. In this case, there is a deviation of the geometry
of the scar from its assumed spherical cap. However, following only five revolutions of the ball, a wear scar more than
16 m deep has been developed with a geometry very close
to that assumed, as also observed by other workers [10,13].
The pressure distribution in the initially non-conforming
surface contact between the ball and testpiece will tend to
promote wear to form a conformal contact; it is clear that
such a development of a conformal contact can be very
rapid.
3.2. Microabrasive wear behaviour of different polymers
Fig. 7. Measured and predicted profiles across wear scars in PMMA following microscale abrasion under a load of 1 N for two sliding distances.
Since the formation of ridges within a wear scar invalidated the measure of wear resistance, it was not possible
to make direct comparisons between materials under these
conditions. Instead, comparisons of the microscale abrasive
wear behaviour of the seven polymer types was made following wear under a 0.5 N load where ridging did not occur
in any case. Wear consisted of 100 revolutions of the ball,
following which the resultant scars were measured an examined. The wear rates of the polymers are listed in Table 1.
Fig. 8 shows SEM micrographs of the wear scar morphology
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Fig. 8. Detailed morphology of wear scars following microabrasion under 0.5 N load and 100 ball revolutions: (a) HDPE; (b) PC; (c) PETG; (d) PMMA;
(e) PP; (f) PS; (g) PVC. Sliding direction from top to bottom in all cases.
of the seven polymers. A range of different surface morphologies can be observed. The wear scar in HDPE (Fig. 8a)
is distinctly different from all the other scars. No evidence
of rolling is present, with instead long, deep parallel grooves
in the direction of sliding being observed. The scar in PP
(Fig. 8e) is also distinct from the others; here, very little
directionality at all is observed and also little evidence
for particle indentation is seen. All the other samples ex-
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4. Discussion
4.1. Ridge formation in polymers
Fig. 9. Polymer wear rate (under a 0.5 N load) vs. the reciprocal of the
product of tensile breaking stress and tensile breaking strain (the Ratner
Lancaster correlation).
Fig. 10. Polymer wear rate (under a 0.5 N load) vs. Martens hardness.
749
lution (Fig. 6a), the degree of damage appears slight; however, Fig. 7 shows that even after such small sliding distances, material has been removed to a depth of 5 m.
The profile in this case shows significant deviation from that
of the assumed spherical cap (Fig. 7); however, after five
revolutions of the ball, the spherical cap geometry is fully
developed with small deviations close to the surface associated with sample scuffing [1]. Again, despite the fact that the
depth of wear was up to 16 m after five ball revolutions
(Fig. 7), the damage observed is relatively slight (Fig. 6b).
4.3. Microabrasive wear behaviour of different polymers
Fig. 3 shows the wear rates of the different polymers under
a load of 0.5 N which was the test load employed to ensure
no ridging of any of the polymers. It can be observed that the
two softest polymers (HDPE and PP, see Table 1) also exhibit
the lowest wear rates and the two hardest polymers (PS
and PMMA) also exhibit the highest wear rates. Classical
wear theory does not account for this. The RatnerLancaster
correlation between the polymer wear rates and (1/ b b ) is
shown in Fig. 9. Whilst the correlation is reasonable, some
anomalies are noticeable. PC and HDPE have similar values
of (1/ b b ), as do PMMA and PS. However, in each pair,
there are very significant differences in wear rate, with the
lowest wear rate in each pair being exhibited by the material
with the largest tensile breaking strain.
Budinski [4] examined the correlation between hardness
and abrasion rate of a range of polymers, using both Shore
hardness and Rebound hardness. He found no correlation
between hardness and wear rate over the range of materials examined. However, in this work, a plot of the wear
rate versus Martens hardness (Fig. 10) exhibits a reasonable correlation (better than the RatnerLancaster correlation) with the wear rate increasing with increasing polymer
hardness. Early work by Lancaster [6] demonstrated a general decrease in abrasive wear rate of a range of polymers
(two body abrasion against coarse carborundum paper) with
increasing hardness. It is difficult to rationalise these two
conflicting observations. In Lancasters work [6], the abrasion was very aggressive and the wear rate of the polymers
may have been dominated by the depth of indentation of the
coarse abrasive particles. However, in the current work, it is
observed that a high hardness is linked with a low elongation
to fracture. It appears to be this latter attribute which most
strongly governs the wear behaviour in microscale abrasion
testing.
Fig. 8 illustrates the morphology of the wear scars in the
seven polymers. The three samples which show the highest
wear rates (PMMA, PS and PVC) all exhibit a similar scar
morphology in which indentation type damage has occurred
with little directionality. These three materials also show the
lowest values of tensile strain to failure. Such indentation
type damage may be associated with low ductility and a
tendency to crack under repeated indentation during testing.
PC and PETG exhibit decreasing damage with an increasing
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5. Conclusions
It has been demonstrated that, with care in choosing the
test conditions, the microscale abrasion test can be employed
to investigate the abrasion rate of polymeric materials with
abrasives of very small size. In spite of concerns that the
abrasive wear behaviour of polymers may be very different
with small abrasives than with large, traditional correlations
(such as the RatnerLancaster) are reasonably successful
with these test conditions.
The wear behaviour and rates of polymers depended critically on the polymer type. High wear was associated with
indentation-type morphology in the wear scar and low values of tensile strain to failure. Polymers with high strains to
failure exhibited less indentation dominated wear. In the case
of HDPE, a solely grooving type mechanism of wear was
identified. It was demonstrated that there was a good correlation between polymer hardness and polymer wear rate.
Under certain conditions, ridges formed in the wear scars
invalidating the test. The tendency for ridge formation differed for the different polymers. Whilst no explanation was
offered for these differences, it was noted that ridging was
not observed in the partially crystalline materials, whereas
Acknowledgements
Support from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (UK) (Grant Number GR/M92836), Plint
and Partners Ltd. and Phoenix Tribology Ltd. is gratefully
acknowledged.
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