Study On Improving The Friction And Wear Properties Of Polyetherimide

With the rapid development of modern science and technology, the requirements offriction and wear material are increasingly high in the aerospace or auto mechanicsand so on. Compared with the conventional wear-resistant metal materials, ceramicsand non-metallic wear resistant material has more excellent properties. However,because of the brittle ceramic materials are often restricted under impact conditions inthe scope of application, so that the polymer material begins to be applied to the fieldof tribology, and has been considerable development. The polymer material has goodself-lubricating, low friction, wear-resistant and light weight and othercharacteristics,so it not only brings huge economic benefits of extending material life,reducing maintenance costs, but also has a high functionality. This has appeared invarious fields of plastic friction, it gradually replaced the metal friction. Thereforepolymer materials have appeared in various fields of plastic friction, and graduallyreplaced the metal friction.The gears and bearings production，mading by Nylon，arewidely used as wear-resistant material first, then epoxy resin and phenol resincomposite materials are widely used in bearings, gears and slide.General plastics andengineering plastics competence is difficult to competence when at the environmentconditions of high temperatures, high speed, high pressure, high vacuum andradiation,so heat resistance of special engineering plastics composites have been wideapplication in fields of aerospace and mechanical. Currently, widely usedheat-resistant polymer has polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), polyphenylene ester(Ekonol), polyphenylene sulfide (PPS), polyether ether ketone (PEEK) and polyimide(PI). Friction and wear in the resin-based material, PI has been broader concernedbecause of having more prominent performance of heat resistance, electricalinsulation, mechanical properties and chemical stability.PEI is a thermoplasticpolyimides, its structure containing both aromatic amine functional groups and etherstructure, which makes PEI not only has thermal and mechanical propertiesresembling with PI,but also has low melt viscosity, flow properties and excellentprocessing performance similar to polycarbonate.PEI can not be used alone aswear-resistant material, that their friction coefficient and wear rate are both large, soPEI need to add a solid lubricant used as composite materials.Commonly used Solidlubricants has metal compound such as Al2O3, TiO2, CuO, ZrO2and MoS2,inorganics of Graphite, fluorinated graphite and fullerene, organic ofpolytetrafluoroethylene, and carbon fiber and glass fiber.This article will use four kinds of solid lubricant as a filler material,which aremolybdenum disulfide, PTFE, graphite and carbon nanotubes, adding to thepolyetherimide in blending mode. Then test the friction and wear properties ofcomposite materials, and compares their friction coefficient and wear rate. After that,select the best additive in improving for further research, and examine the influence offriction coefficient and wear rate by additive content, load and speed affect the.