Aramid Improves Tribological Characteristic of Polymers

Aramid is a great composite and very tough man-made fiber. The structure-property correlation and the application areas of these fibres arc reviewed. Adding of aramid fibers are characterized by their superior thermal properties, resistance to chemicals and outstanding mechanical properties, high tensile strength, high heat resistance less wear tear, less abrasive etc. properties. It is most useful material for making their products are so useful i.e. heat resistance clothes, flak jackets and helmets for armed forces etc. This paper presents the influence of the matrix on tribological properties of composites having 10% aramid fibers. Polyamide (Relamid) and PBT (Crastin) were used as matrix. The short aramid fibers (Teijin) were approximately 200...250 µm in length and 10 µm in diameter, with expended extremities due to manufacturing process. Tests were done on block-on-ring tribotester on a BRUKER-CETR®.UTM 2 system. SEM images help identify wear mechanisms and pointed out the different behavior of the two matrixes. Adding aramid fibers into a matrix of either PA or PBT makes the resulting blends have better tribological characteristics: the wear is much lower, the friction coefficient slightly increases, but remaining in an acceptable range for actual applications as compared with the neat polymers. PBT + 10% wt aramid fibers had the lowest wear versus a slightly higher coefficient of friction as compared to that of PBT, for the tested regimes.