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

This paper deals with the wear behaviour of continuous-fibre-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-fibre/epoxy-resin (CF/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 (fibre orientation relative to the sliding direction, fibre and matrix material) were investigated. The incorporation of Aramid fibres affected the wear resistance of the polymers only little, while carbon and glass fibres resulted in an increase in the wear rates. Epoxy resin composites were slightly superior to polyetheretherketone composites.