Wear 301 (2013) 802–809

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Wear
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/wear

Surface lubrication of graphite fabric reinforced epoxy composites

with nano- and micro-sized hexagonal boron nitride
Ajay Kumar Kadiyala, Jayashree Bijwe n
Industrial Tribology Machine Dynamics and Maintenance Engineering Centre (ITMMEC), Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this work graphite fabric (GrF) as a reinforcement and epoxy matrix with high thermal stability
Received 17 September 2012 (315 1C) as a binder were selected for developing high performance composites. Fibers of carbon or
Received in revised form graphite are known to be inert with the matrices and hence possibility of composites with weaker
27 November 2012
interface always exists. Hence these are expected to be treated prior to the use as reinforcement. In this
Accepted 29 November 2012
Available online 8 January 2013
work GrF was treated with HNO3 as per standard practice. The composites with modified and
unmodified GrF were developed using a solution impregnation technique followed by compression
Keywords: molding. Two more composites were developed with surface modification technique using these
Solid lubrication treated GrF. For surface designing a solid lubricant, hexagonal boron nitride-hBN also known as white
Hexagonal boron nitride
graphite was used in two sizes {micron (E 1.5 mm) and nano-meter (E 70 nm)} in different amounts.
Composites
These composites were evaluated for adhesive wear performance under selected loads and speed by
Micro-Raman spectroscopy
Anti-friction material sliding against a mild steel disc (RaE 0.1 mm). It was observed that the m and specific wear rate (K0) of a
Epoxy composite without modified GrF and without solid lubricated surfaces showed higher values as
compared to composites with treated GrF and solid lubricated surfaces. Surface modification by nano-
hBN proved most effective leading to a very low m and K0. Overall, m and K0 as low as 0.04 and
3  10  16 m3/Nm were reported when tested under severe conditions which are treated as extremely
good for antifriction materials. The thermo-mechanical stresses incurred in the fibers were examined
using Raman spectroscopy by conducting long duration experiments. The film transfer on the disc
which was responsible for this performance was studied using SEM–EDAX.
& 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction composites continues on exploration of nano-fillers with these

Frictional heat generated at the sliding surface has always
been a serious concern for tribologists especially working in the
area of polymer composites. It limits the utility of such tribo-
materials in high PV (pressure–velocity) conditions. It degrades
the surface leading to various undesirable phenomena such as
melting/softening/degradation of a polymer leading to drastic
reduction in strength or increase in wear rate or stick-slip
tendency; deterioration in fiber-matrix bonding resulting in acute
increase in wear rate and friction coefficient (m). Hence the quest
for searching newer and better polymers which will have higher
and higher thermal stability, strength and its retention at elevated
temperature apart from very good tribological properties
continues. In recent years various specialty polymers such as
polyetherether ketone (PEEK), polyaryletherketone (PEAK), poly-
etherimide (PEI), polyimide (PI), polyethersulfone (PES), etc. are
tried for developing tribo-composites. The research on newer
n
Corresponding author. Tel.: þ91 11 265 9128; fax: þ 91 11 265 6222.
E-mail address: jbijwe@gmail.com (J. Bijwe).
matrices [1–6].
Epoxies perhaps are the most favoured matrices for developing
high performance composites especially for aircraft Industries.
Few papers have appeared on their exploitation for tribo-
composites also, though not very recently [7]. Being thermosets,
these lack the advantage enjoyed by self lubricating polymers
such as polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), high density polyethylene
(HDPE), etc. which are known for very low m because of special
feature of molecular chains sliding easily over each other. In
recent years not many papers have appeared on tribo-exploration
of epoxies [7–9] basically because of their limitation for high
temperature stability. Recently AREMCO has commercialized an
epoxy with high thermal stability (315 1C) and hence it was of
interest to explore its potential as a matrix for developing high
performance tribo-composites.
For efficient tribo-composites apart from a thermally stable
matrix, other requirements are of right reinforcement and solid
lubricants. Amongst various reinforcements such as glass, aramid,
graphite, carbon etc., graphite has special features of very
high thermal and thermo-oxidative stability, specific strength,
thermal conductivity and self lubricity leading to an ideal choice

0043-1648/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wear.2012.11.069
 A.K. Kadiyala, J. Bijwe / Wear 301 (2013) 802–809
for tribo-composites in spite of its high cost [4–6]. Graphite fibers
have the entire performance properties superior to carbon fibers
(CF). Comparatively less is reported on the exploration of GrF in
tribology perhaps because of less availability and higher cost. In
this work, GrF was chosen as reinforcement for developing the
composites. Instead of short fibers, fabric form was used because
of special advantage of bi-directional strength. The bi-directional
reinforcement in comparison with unidirectional fibers and short
fibers provides additional benefits such as structural integrity,
anisotropy, ease of handling and processing. Most of the work on
graphite fabric has been on an uni-axial oriented fabric. Suh [10]
compared uniaxial graphite fiber-epoxy composite with Kevlar
fiber-epoxy and biaxially oriented glass fiber-MoS2-PTFE and
found that graphite fiber showed the lower wear and m. Tripathy
and Furey [11] also studied the tribological behavior of unidirec-
tional graphite-epoxy under varying velocities and orientations
of fiber. They found that intermediate velocity showed the
least wear.
To improve the friction and wear behavior of the polymer
based composites, various solid lubricants (SLs) such as graphite,
molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE),
etc. are added. Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) known as white
graphite is perhaps least explored SL in spite of its very high
thermal stability. hBN has a lamellar crystalline structure similar
to graphite and MoS2 in which the bond between molecules
within each layer is strong covalent, while the binding between
layers is almost entirely maintained by means of weak van der
Waals forces [12].
It is always of an interest to correlate thermo-mechanical
stresses incurred in the material during tribological experiments
with structural changes. CF is known to have crystalline structure
and it was reported first time by Sharma et al. [13] in their paper
about correlation between distortion in graphitic structure of CF
due to tribological stresses (during erosion) and during chemical
treatments by Raman spectroscopy. It was of interest to examine
if this technique is useful in case of GrF and in adhesive wear
mode. Since GrF are more crystalline than CF, it was anticipated
that distortion in the graphitic structure would not be seen so
easily.
Keeping all these factors in view various composites with
treated and untreated GrF based on a recently commercialized EP
matrix (no literature is available on its tribo-exploration) with
surface tailoring with hBN of two sizes and amounts were
developed and tribo-evaluated. The details are complied in the
successive sections.
2. Experimental details
2.1. Materials
Ultra high temperature epoxy resin was supplied by Aremco
Products Inc., USA under the trade name Aremco-BondTM 570 and
as per details in Table 1 was selected as a matrix.
Table1
Properties of the epoxy resin supplied by Aremco
Products Inc., USA under the trade name Aremco-
BondTM 570.
Properties Details
Specific gravity 0.95 g cc
Mixed viscosity @ 25 1C 35,000 cP
Temperature resistance  60 to 316 1C
803
Table 2
Details of hBN powders supplied by M K Impex Corp., Canada.
Properties Details
Crystal structure Hexagonal
Density 2.3 g/cm3
Coefficient of friction 0.15–0.70
Thermal stability 1000 1C
Particle size 1.5 mm and 70 nm ( average size)
A solid lubricant, hBN was supplied by M K Impex Corp.,
Canada in two sizes (micro- and nanometer) as per details in
Table 2 and SEM of particles are shown in Fig. 1.
Graphite fabric (twill 2  2) was procured from SGL Technol-
ogies GmbH, Germany and details are shown in Table 3.
Prior to use, the fabric was treated with boiling HNO3 (67%) for
an hour as per reported data [14]. This was essential to enhance
wettability towards matrix. After treatment, the fabric was
washed several times with distilled water till all acidic contents
were washed off as confirmed from pH paper. These were dried
and used for preparation of composites.
2.2. Composite preparation
The composites based upon treated and untreated GrF were
prepared by impregnation in solution of epoxy resin (40 wt%)
with acetone to reduce the viscosity to enable better wetting. The
14 pieces of 76.2 mm  76.2 mm were cut from the roll and the
sides were sealed with PTFE-glass fabric tape to avoid misalign-
ment during handling. The plies were dipped in the solution for
1 h in a sealed chamber to avoid evaporation. The plies were then
removed from the container in stretched conditions carefully and
dried to remove the acetone at room temperature for 24 h. These
were then stacked together and molded in 76.2 mm  76.2 mm
mould on compression molding machine. The heating rates were;
100 1C for 20 min and 240 1C for 20 min under a pressure of
70 bars. The composite was then cooled to ambient temperature
under compressed condition. After cooling the samples for var-
ious tribological tests were cut using ISOMat 1000 precision
diamond cutter.
2.2.1. Development of surface tailored composites
For developing surface tailored composites with nano and
micro based hBN and treated GrF, it was necessary to get the
particles in suspended form. Few initial experiments were done
as follows.
To calculate the % intake of epoxy resin by GrF, the initial
weight of GrF was noted down and was dipped in a solution (40%
solution of epoxy resin). The weight gain due to resin was
measured after drying the preregs in vaccum oven. It was found
that for a piece of GrF (76.2 mm  76.2 mm) 6 g of resin was
required to prepare a prepreg. Three top layers of GrF were used
as surface tailored prepregs as per procedure described by Sharma
and Bijwe [15] so that the bulk properties are not compromised.
The % hBN used in each case being wt% of GrFþepoxy resin after
drying as shown in Table 4. Probe sonication was carried for
proper dispersion of the hBN particles using acetone as a medium
(such that % of acetone was E 90%) for 10 min and then epoxy
was added to the suspension followed by further probe sonication
for 5 min. Using this solution the surface tailored prepregs were
developed. The three hBN containing prepregs were placed on the
top of 11 prepregs (which contained no hBN). This was then
compression molded as described earlier.
804 A.K. Kadiyala, J. Bijwe / Wear 301 (2013) 802–809

Fig. 1. SEM images of hBN particle supplied as per sizes such as; (a) 1.5 mm size and (b) 70 mm size.

Table 3 The input parameters were as follows:

Details of Fabric supplied by SGL Technologies
GmbH, Germany under trade name SIGRATEX  Constant speed of 1.72 m/s (800 rpm).
GDK 8045/127.  Load-variable ( 200–700 N in the steps of 100 N).
Properties Details
 Sliding time for initial experiments-1 h (sliding distance
6.17 km).
Weight 385 g/m3  Sliding time for comparative experiments-4 h (sliding distance
Thickness 0.56 mm 24.72 km).
Weave Twill 2  2
Carbon content 499%
 Sliding time for long term experiments for evaluating stresses
incurred in the fibers—1–25 h in the steps 1 h initially and
then after periodic intervals of 4 h. (sliding distance for first
1 h  6.17 km, for rest of the experiments sliding distance was
24.72 km).
Table 4
Physical properties of composite.
The specific wear rate was calculated using the following
Properties UT TT NM M10 M15 M20 equation:


Fiber weight (%) (ASTM D 2548) 76.4 78 78 78 78 78 K 0 ¼ Dm=rLd m3 =Nm
Density (g/cm3) (ASTM D 792) 1.32 1.45 1.45 1.45 1.45 1.45
where, Dm ¼weight loss in kg, r ¼density in kg/m3, L¼load in
UT (composite with untreated GrF), TT (composite with treated GrF), NM
Newton, and d ¼distance traveled in meters. The experiment was
(composite with treated GrF and top three layers with a mixture of nano- (2%)
and micro-hBN (8%); M10 (composite with treated GrF and top three layers with repeated three times and the average of two closest readings was
micro-hBN 10%); M15 (composite with treated GrF and top three layers with considered for plotting the graph. This has been indicated by bars
micro-hBN 15%) and M20 (composite with treated GrF and top three layers with in the histogram.
micro-hBN 20%).

2.3.3. Worn surface topography studies

2.3. Characterization of composites.
2.3.1. Physical properties
The physical characterization of various composites was done
according to ASTM standards and shown in Table 4.
2.3.2. Adhesive wear studies
The adhesive wear testing was carried out on Tribometer-3MT
supplied by CETR, USA. The studies were done on S33HE, in multi-
pass condition on a high torque and high load rotary drive.
Friction force was measured with DFH-1000 load sensor (1–1000 N
with 50 mN resolution).
The sample of dimensions 10 mm  10 mm  3.5 mm was slid
against a C-1000 emery paper at low speed for uniform contact.
After the bedding process, the experiments were carried on using
a mild steel disc with Ra 0.15–0.20 mm. Prior to the experiment
the initial weight of a pin of a composites was measured (on a
weighing balance with an accuracy of 0.0001 g) after cleaning the
composites with petroleum ether in bath sonicator followed by
drying. After the experiment, pin was cleaned ultrasonically and
dried followed by weighing. The warp fibers in the composites
were always kept parallel to the sliding direction.
SEM (ZEISS, EVO-MA10) along with EDAX facility was used to
study the worn surfaces of pins and discs. The pins were gold
coated using the ion sputtering method.
2.3.4. Raman spectroscopic studies
To investigate the surface topography changes with respect to
duration of sliding time. Renishaw inVia Raman spectrometer
with 514 nm HeNe laser was used to record Raman spectra of
treated composites after periodic time of 1 h and then after every
4 h duration.
3. Results and discussions
Fig. 2 shows the results of friction and wear studies for the
short duration tests (1 h) for three composites. Since the beha-
vioral patterns were not clearly distinguished, the experiments
were designed for longer durations (4 h) and results are shown in
Fig. 3. Fig. 4 shows the variation in m and K0 as a function of time
of TT composites.
Fig. 5 shows the Raman spectra of a pin surface composite
during long duration experiment. The structural order of pin
and disc surface as a function of sliding time is shown in Fig. 6.
 A.K. Kadiyala, J. Bijwe / Wear 301 (2013) 802–809
Fig. 2. Friction (a) and wear behavior (b) for selected composites under three different loads (speed 1.72 m/s; duration 1 h).
Fig. 3. Coefficient of friction (a) and specific wear rate (b) for selected composites
as a function of load under severe operating conditions (speed 1.72 m/s, sliding
duration 4 h, and sliding distance 24.72 km).
Table 5 gives variation in degree of disorder and size of crystallite
as a function of sliding time.
The worn surface of pin and disc were studied using SEM, Fig. 7
shows SEM micrographs of pin surface of various composites worn
under 500 N load and Fig. 9 shows the SEM micrographs of disc
surfaces worn against selected composites. SEM–EDAX mapping
of M20 at 600 N load is shown in Fig. 8. SEM–EDAX of disc surface of
M20 at 500 N is shown in Fig. 10.
3.1. Adhesive wear studies of composites
3.1.1. Short duration experiments on some composites
Three composites were tested in milder conditions (duration
1 h) for examining initial characteristics. As seen from Fig. 2 the
805
coefficient of friction and specific wear rates of the composites
were quite low (m in the range of 0.07–0.16 and K0 1–
2  10  15 m3/Nm). It was also observed that m decreased with
load for all composites, which is as per general trends for
polymers and composites. K0 on the other hand in general
increased with load with few exceptions. Since the damage to
fibers increase disproportionately with load leading to increase in
K0 at higher loads. It was also observed that treatment to GrF
proved marginally beneficial for reducing m by approx 6–8%. The
trends in K0 however, were not so clear. Hence long duration tests
(severe operating parameters) were conducted and the results are
shown in Fig. 3.
In general while recording the m as a function of sliding time, it
was observed that it settles down to a very stable value after
showing initial fluctuations. This stabilized value of m was
considered for plotting the graphs. Following were the salient
observations from the studies carried out on the composites:
 The composites showed very low K0 in the range of
3–10  10  16 m3/Nm and very low m (0.05–0.1). The increase
in sliding time keeping other parameters same, led to slight
reduction m and appreciable reduction in K0 because of more
efficient film transfer on the counterface.
 Composites UT and TT failed while running under higher load
(600 N), UT failed in 60 s and TT within few minutes. Hence
their limiting load was declared as 600 N under a speed of
1.72 m/s.
 There was again a marginal but positive effect on m due to
treatment of fabric. However, the K0 showed appreciable
reduction ( E20%).
 With increase in load the m decreased in all the cases
substantially as per general trends in the literature. In the
case of K0, most of the times it reduced with increase in load1 .
Once the efficient, uniform and thin film of graphite (from
graphite fiber) is transferred on the disc, the friction is
between graphite and graphite. When further improvement
in the quality of film is not possible, further improvement in m
also not possible in spite of increase in sliding time.
 Surface treatment of the composites with hBN also led to
significant decrease in m and wear rate. Amongst all, NM
appears to be the most effective in most of the cases for
reducing wear rate. For m there was no significant difference
because of size or amount of hBN. It was expected that nano-
hBN would show distinctly different behavior. This could be
possibly due to some problem with supplied nano-particles of
1
Generally for fiber reinforced polymers (FRPs) K0 increases with increase in
load because of disproportionate breakage of fibers. For solid lubricated compo-
sites trends are opposite. K0 decreases with increase in load because with increase
in load the quality of transferred film of lubricant increases. For solid lubricated
FRPs mixed trends can be observed depending on dominance of fiber or SL.
806 A.K. Kadiyala, J. Bijwe / Wear 301 (2013) 802–809

0.12 11
10

K0 X 10-16, m3 /Nm
0.11
9
0.10 8
7
0.09
µ
6
0.08 5
4
0.07 3
2
0.06
0 5 10 15 20 25
0 5 10 15 20 25
Time (Hours) Time (Hours)

Fig. 4. Comparison of tribo-performance of treated fabric composites as a function of time; (a) coefficient of friction and (b) specific wear rate.

Table 5
25 h ID/IG surface crystalline size (La) for worn surface of TT.

21 h Sliding time (h) ID/IG La (Å)

17
Arbitaray Value

1 1.18 37.13
13 h 5 1.16 37.684
9h 9 1.09 40.22
13 1.03 42.52
5h 17 1.02 42.886
21 1.03 42.52
1h
25 1.00 43.89

1000 1500 2000
Raman Shift (cm-1)
Fig. 5. Raman spectra recorded for TT composite during long duration experiments.
hBN as 70 nm size. SEM observation led to a conclusion that it
was around 200 nm size. Though combination of 8% 1.5 mm
(1500 nm) along with 2% particles of 200 nm had helped to
reduce the K0 but not m substantially. If the particles supplied
would be of really a nano-size, further enhancement in
properties could be possible.
 M10 and M15 showed identical m. However M20 showed
advantage of increased amount of hBN by showing lowest m
(0.05) at 600 N. It showed further reduction in m at 700 N.
Other composites could not be tested under further loads
because of non-availability of samples.
 Incorporation of hBN on the surface has definitely increased
limiting load of the composite from 500 N to more than 600 N.
They did not fail.
 The K0 of M10 and NM composites were the lowest, with M10
showing better performance at higher loads indicating that
10% could be the optimum amount of hBN on the surface for
best tribo-properties.
(Raman studies on surface tailored composites were not carried out since the
spectra of hBN and ID of graphite fabric overlap and since reinforcement shows
high number of counts, hBN spectra is suppressed).
correlation emerges due to the increasing amount of stresses
incurred during long term adhesive wear test since such studies
are not reported in the literature.
Since the peaks of hBN and carbon appear almost in the same
region, it was difficult to segregate the effect due to both crystal-
line ingredients. Hence for these studies composite without hBN
was selected.
As seen from Fig. 4 the K0 of TT composite drastically
decreased after first 1 h test to the next 4 h test and afterwards
almost levelled off after 13 h of running, the running-in period
may be the reason for high K0. The m was in the range of 0.1–0.09.
3.2. Micro-Raman studies
The bands at 1354 and 1587 cm  1 are the main features of
polycrystalline graphite material and are known as D bands
(disordered) and G bands (graphitic) respectively. The ratio of
integrated intensity of disorder induced (ID) to Raman allowed
band (IG) gives the degree of disorder. The size of crystallites
located in the surface regions (La) was calculated using the
empirical formula given by Tunistra and Koenig [16] which is as
follows:

La ¼ 103 =22:7R Å, whereR ¼ IA =IE

3.1.2. Long duration test on composite TT for studies with Raman
spectroscopy
It was proposed to study the influence of shearing stresses on
the crystalline structures of GrF and hBN. Sharma and Bijwe [13]
have recently reported fairly good correlation with extent of
graphitic distortion in carbon fibers due to stresses incurred
during erosion with increasing amount of time. In the present
composites, it was of interest to examine if some similar
IA and IE represent the Raman intensities of D and G bands
respectively.
Various authors have reported that the surface crystallite size
decreases with treatment on carbon/graphite fabric. From Table 5,
effect of sliding time on structural order and size crystallite of TT
composites can be observed. With increase in sliding time more
stresses incurred and the distortion in crystallinity increased.
However after 13 h, the ID/IG ration almost levelled off. From the
 A.K. Kadiyala, J. Bijwe / Wear 301 (2013) 802–809 807

Fig. 6. Variation in ID/(ID þ IG) structural order with time; (a) structural order of pin and (b) structural order of disc.

20µm 10µm 20µm

20µm 10µm 20µm

Fig. 7. SEM micrographs (1.00 kX) of pin surfaces worn under 500 N load—(a) UT; (b) TT; (c) NM; (d) M10; (e) M15 and (f) M20.

60µm

40µm

Fig. 8. SEM and EDAX of pin surface of M20 worn under 600 N—(a) showing fiber breaking, fiber pullout and fiber thinning (b–f) elemental mapping by EDAX at the same
location; (b and c) shows mapping of C and O indicating patches where epoxy is present; d and e shows the dot mapping of B an N confirming uniform layer of hBN on the
surface; f shows the back transfer of Fe particles exactly on the location where epoxy is present.
808 A.K. Kadiyala, J. Bijwe / Wear 301 (2013) 802–809

10µm 10µm 10µm

Fig. 9. SEM micrograph (1.0 kX) of disc surface at 500 N load (a) TT, (b) NM and (c) M20.

30µm

20µm

Fig. 10. SEM and EDAX of disc surface worn against composite M20 at 500 N—(a) SEM showing film transfer of epoxy resin onto the disc and worn graphite fibers
(marked) in sliding direction, the film transfer supports the low m and K0; (b–e) EDAX on same location (dot mapping for O, C, B and N) indicating uniformly transferred
hBN on the disc surface (d and e) from a pin which is responsible for excellent friction and wear performance.

data of La it seems that crystal size showed increase with
sliding time.
Following were the observations from Raman studies on the
pin of TT slid for increased time:
 The Raman spectra of TT composite at various intervals of
time, after first one hour and next 4 h test showed slight shift
to the right in the D band and G band from that of graphite
indicating interaction between matrix and reinforcement [17]
as shown in Fig. 5.
 Structural order parameter showed good correlation with K0
(Fig. 6a).
 The crystallite size increased, disorder parameter decreased
with sliding time (Table 5).
It was thought interesting to examine if there could be
changes in the Raman spectra of graphite layer transferred on
the disc. As seen from Fig. 6b it was found that the structural
order increased with the sliding time. The Raman spectra of the
disc surface showed shift towards left in disorder band
(1346 cm  1,, ID) and right of graphitic band (1609 cm  1, IG). The
disorder parameter increased with time as measured from the
disc surface. This suggests that, the film transferred on the disc
surface undergoes severe shearing for prolonged time followed by
extensive thinning and plastic deformation leading to increase in
degree of disorder parameter as seen from Fig. 6b.
3.3. SEM studies
3.3.1. SEM of pin surface
Fig. 7 shows the SEM micrographs of worn pin surfaces at
500 N load for selected composites. As seen in Fig. 7a UT
(composite based on untreated GrF) showed typical cracks pro-
pagating from fiber tips; fiber-matrix de-bonding; excessive
peeled out fibers; etc. supporting to its highest wear. TT on the
other hand showed improved fiber-matrix adhesion as a result of
treatment to the fabric which led to enhanced fiber-matrix
adhesion. Hence the fibers were not easily peeled off. The
Fig. 7c shows worn surface of NM which is still better than the
earlier one in the context that the most of the fibers are wear
thinned and not broken which supports its high wear resistance.
Under shear conditions if the adhesion between the fiber-matrix
is good, then the shear stress is efficiently transferred to the fiber
leading to shear thinning. M10 showed almost the best perfor-
mance in terms of K0 and from Fig. 7d very good fiber-matrix
adhesion can be seen.
3.3.2. SEM of disc surface
The surface of disk worn against selected composites is shown
Fig. 9. In micrograph Fig. 9a rough and uneven material transfer
can be seen which is responsible for high m for TT. Micrographs
Fig. 9(b) and (c) shows uniform and thin layer transfer in the case
of NM and M20 respectively. Thin, uniform and coherent film
 A.K. Kadiyala, J. Bijwe / Wear 301 (2013) 802–809
transfer was the reason for low m and K0 and also confirms
lubricating action of hBN. Further Fig. 10 confirms the uniform
distribution of hBN in the disc by EDAX.
4. Conclusions
Based on the studies carried out on the composites developed
with GrF treated with nitric acid, following conclusions were
made:
 Treatment of GrF proved beneficial for improvement in the
fiber-matrix adhesion as indicated from the SEM micrographs
of the pin surface.
 The surface tailored composites showed E33% reduction in m
and E50% improvement in wear resistance. Apart from redu-
cing m and K0, surface lubrication led to increase in the PVlimit
value. Thus concept of solid lubrication on the surface of FRP
proved successful. It was also thought that since GrF and hBN
both are very efficient SL, the lubricating effect of hBN could
have been surfaced out more if combined with fibers of glass
or aramid.
 The Raman studies showed that after an initial running in
period there is not much change in the degree of disorder of
fibers in the composites. On the other hand studies on the disc
surface revealed that, graphite film undergoes constant shear
and deformation (elastic and plastic) resulting in disorder of
the film transferred on to the disc surface.
 SEM and EDAX studies on the disc and pin surface confirmed
the lubricating action of hBN.
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