Preparation And Properties Of UHMWPE-based Composites Filled With MMT And Ekonol

In recent years, with the affusion exploitation of oil field, in the petroleum exploitation's pumping system which has pumps, leaning friction of the sucker rod and pipeline is becoming more and more worse. The use of stabilizer is one of the effective meanings to minimize the wear of sucker rod and tubing. Metal and nylon materials used as stabilizer have not met the demands of stabilizer with conditions of oil production becoming severe. In this paper, Ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene(UHMWPE) used as matrix was reinforced with nano-MMT and Ekonol respectively. Consequently, a new stabilizer material was studied on friction and wear, mechanical and thermal properties.The friction and wear property of UHMWPE was improved by filling nano-MMT and Ekonol under dry friction condition. The optimum proportion of nano-MMT and Ekonol is 10% and 20% respectively, wear resistance of which increased by 356% and 374% correspondingly. Under oil-field sewage condition, wear rate increased enlarge much, compared with dry friction condition. However,taking nylon material for comparison,UHMWPE-based composites showed a lower friction coefficient and a higher wear resistance increased by 161% for 10%MMT-UHMWPE and 241% for 20%Ekonol-UHMWPE.The hardness of UHMWPE composites was increased with nano-MMT and Ekonol contents. Within the range of this study, tensile strength of composites appeared a peak, but impact strength reduced gradually with increase of fillers. Strength of UHMWPE-based composites still kept a higher value if the content of nano-MMT and Ekonol was less than 10% and 20% respectively, which is suitable for engineering structure.UHMWPE-based composites exhibited a high crystallinity and the Vicat softening temperature; compared with pure UHMWPE, the crystallinity value and Vicat softening temperature of UHMWPE/MMT and UHMWPE/Ekonol were increased by 23%, 21% and 10℃, 12℃at the most, respectively. Furthermore, thermal conductivity of composites was improved to some degree.Likewise, selecting nylon material for stabilizer as a comparative investigation, UHMWPE-based composites displayed higher strength value and minimal water absorption. Thus, for oil-well, of which temperature is below 100℃, UHMWPE-based composite proves to be better than nylon material when used as stabilizer material.