Fretting wear performance of glass- carbon, and aramid fibre/epoxy- and PEEK-composites

This paper is dealing with the wear behavior of continuous fiber reinforced plastics under oscillatory sliding against aluminium counterparts. Firstly, the influence of the loading parameters such as amplitude, frequency, nominal contact pressure, and environmental temperature on the fretting wear of a carbon fiber/epoxy resin (EF/EP) laminate was studied. The amplitude, the frequency and the contact pressure were found to have a critical influence on the fretting wear rate of the CF/EP. Furthermore, at constant testing conditions the effects of material parameters (fiber orientation relative to the sliding direction, fiber and matrix material) were investigated. The incorporation of aramid fibers affected the wear resistance of the polymers only little, while carbon and glass fibers resulted in an increase of the wear rates. Epoxy resin composites were slightly superior to PEEK composites.