Mechanical and tribological properties of antifriction peek-based composites formed by hot pressing and FDM

With the aim of development antifriction polymer polyetheretherketone based composites for friction units some mechanical and tribological properties of three-component PEEK-based composites loaded with two type of solid lubricant particles (PTFE and MoS2) and fabricated by two methods (hot pressing and fused deposition modeling) have been investigated. It was found that in comparison with unfilled PEEK the wear rate can be decreased by 39 times under testing over steel counterpart, and by 15 times over a ceramic one for a composite obtained by hot pressing, while for 3D-printed composite it was equal to 11 and by 2 times, respectively. It was shown that despite the decrease in the mechanical and tribological properties of the composite obtained by the FDM method in comparison with the hot-pressed one, it was possible to significantly increase the wear resistance compared to neat PEEK. It is recommended to use a composite “PEEK+10 wt % PTFE+0.5 wt % MoS2” for fabricating complex shape products for friction units by the FDM method.