WEAR OF HIGH DENSITY POLYETHYLENE REINFORCED BY SINGLE WALL CARBON NANOTUBES AND ALUMINIUM OXIDE NANOPARTICLES FOR BEARING MATERIALS APPLICATIONS

Abstract

Bearing materials must withstand the extremely hard operations affairs through unique tribological and mechanical properties. Various types of polymers exhibit acceptable solutions as bearing materials because of their high weight ratio and self-lubrication materials. In the current work, tribological properties of bearing material high-density polyethylene (HDPE) reinforced by 0.1 aluminium oxide (Al 2 O 3 ) nanoparticles and 0.1– 0.5 wt. % single wall carbon nanotubes ( SWCNTs) were investigated in order to enhance the tribological and mechanical properties The Nano-composite specimens were prepared in cylindrical shape and they were subjected to friction and wear tests using pin on disc tribometer. The specimens were tested as counterparts and the disk was made from stainless steel. Wear tests were done each exactly 120 sec., and the weight losses calculated by weighing the specimens before and after the test. It is noticed that the HDPE nano-composite specimen with additives of SWCNTs 0.5 wt. % gives the specific optimum tribological properties and the coefficient of friction was reduced by 30% in comparing with pure HDPE material.