Fretting Wear Behavior of Fluorine Rubber and Short Carbon Fiber Reinforced Fluorine Rubber Matrix Composites

The fretting wear behavior of fluorine rubber (FKM) and short carbon fiber (SCF) reinforced fluorine rubber matrix composites (SCF/FKMCs) is investigated experimentally under air condition. Four kinds of SCF/FKMCs with different SCF concentrations (5 phr, 10 phr, 15 phr, and 20 phr in every 100 phr of FKM) are considered. The contact model utilizes the sphere-on-flat contact between a 440C stainless steel ball and an FKM or SCF/FKMCs coating perfectly bonded to a ceramic sheet in fretting experiments. The impacts of SCF concentration, normal force, and displacement amplitude on the fretting wear behavior are investigated. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) is used to analyze the fretting wear surface morphology and wear mechanism, while three-dimensional (3D) white-light interference profilometer is used to describe the characteristics of 3D surface wear profile and determine the wear volume. The fretting wear performances of FKM and SCF/FKMCs with different SCF concentrations are compared under different fretting test conditions. The results show that adding an appropriate amount of SCFs to FKM can improve wear resistance and reduce the coefficient of friction (COF). SCF/FKMC with SCF concentration of 15 phr has the smallest COF. SCF/FKMCs with SCF concentration of 5 phr or 15 phr have the best wear resistance for small normal force or large displacement amplitude.