1 INTRODUCTION

Polymers and polymermatrix composites have been nding great potentials in

industry as a class of important tribo-engineering materials, not just for their ease in manufacturing
and low unit cost, but also for their potentially engineered forms. Many investigation shown that the
incorporation of llers excellent tribological performance in improved the wear resistance and reduced
the friction coefcient. Polymer composites lled with bers and/or solid lubricants have been widely
accepted as tribo-materials and use do the components supposed to run without any external
lubricants. The former mainly improves the mechanical strength and wear resistance of polymers,
while the latter improves friction characteristics and contributes to the control of wear. Tribological
properties of polymer composites can also be greatly enhanced with the addition of nanoparticles,
such as nano-Al2O3/polyimide, nano-ZnO/polytetrauoroethylene (PTFE), and nano-TiO2/epoxy. One
of the distinct advantages of nano composites over micro-composites lies in that the performance
improvement is often achieved at relatively low concentration of the Nano-llers, which is benecial to
the mechanical properties, processability, and esthetic appearance of the end products. The
modication of the tribological properties of polymers by the combined addition of nanoparticles and
conventional llers has shown a great promise and so has lately been a subject of considerable
interest. This made the composites suitable in tribological applications such as cams, seals, brakes,
bearings etc

1.1 ABS

Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) (chemical formula (C8H8)-(C4H6)-(C3H3) is a

common thermoplastic polymer. Its glass transition temperature is approximately 105 C
(221 F).ABS is amorphous and therefore has no true melting point. ABS is a terpolymer made by
polymerizing styrene and Acrylonitrile in the presence of polybutadiene. The proportions can vary
from 15 to 35% Acrylonitrile, 5 to 30% butadiene and 40 to 60% styrene. The result is a long chain of
polybutadiene criss-crossed with shorter chains of poly (styrene-co-Acrylonitrile). The nitrile groups
from neighboring chains, being polar, attract each other and bind the chains together, making ABS
stronger than pure polystyrene. The styrene gives the plastic a shiny, impervious surface. The
polybutadiene, a rubbery substance, provides toughness even at low temperatures.

For the majority of applications, ABS can be used between 20 and 80 C (4 and
176 F) as its mechanical properties vary with temperature. The properties are created by rubber
toughening, where fine particles of elastomer are distributed throughout the rigid matrix.
 1.2 PTFE

Polytetrafluoroethylene is a synthetic fluoropolymer of tetrafluoroethylene that has

numerous applications. The best known brand name of PTFE-based formulas is Teflon by Chemours.
Chemours is a spin-off of DuPont Co., which discovered the compound in 1938.PTFE is
a fluorocarbon solid, as it is a high-molecular-weight compound consisting wholly
of carbon and fluorine. PTFE is hydrophobic: neither water nor water-containing substances wet
PTFE, as fluorocarbons demonstrate mitigated dispersion forces due to the high electro negativity of
fluorine. PTFE has one of the lowest coefficients of friction of any solid. PTFE is used as a non-
stick coating for pans and other cookware. It is very non-reactive, partly because of the strength
of carbonfluorine bonds, and so it is often used in containers and pipe work for reactive and
corrosive chemicals. Where used as a lubricant, PTFE reduces friction, wear and energy consumption
of machinery. It is commonly used as a graft material in surgical interventions. Also, it is frequently
employed as coating on catheters.

1.3 GRAPHITE

Graphite is a crystalline form of carbon, a semimetal, a native element mineral, and one of
the allotropes of carbon. Graphite is the most stable form of carbon under standard conditions.
Therefore, it is used in thermo chemistry as the standard state for defining the heat of formation of
carbon compounds. Graphite may be considered the highest grade of coal, just above anthracite and
alternatively called meta-anthracite, although it is not normally used as fuel because it is difficult to
ignite. Graphite has a layered, planar structure. The individual layers are called graphene. In each
layer, the carbon atoms are arranged in a honeycomb lattice with separation of 0.142 nm, and the
distance between planes is 0.335 nm. Atoms in the plane are bonded covalently, with only three of
the four potential bonding sites satisfied. The fourth electron is free to migrate in the plane, making
graphite electrically conductive.

However, it does not conduct in a direction at right angles to the plane. Bonding between
layers is via weak van-der Waals bonds, which allows layers of graphite to be easily separated, or to
slide past each other.
 1.4 TRIBOLOGY

Tribology is the study of science and engineering of interacting surfaces in

relative motion. It includes the study and application of the principles of friction, lubrication and wear.
Tribology is a branch of mechanical engineering and materials science. The study of tribology is
commonly applied in bearing design but extends into almost all other aspects of modern technology,
even to such unlikely areas as hair conditioners and cosmetics such as lipstick, powders and lip-
gloss. Any product where one material slides or rubs over another is affected by complex tribological
interactions, whether lubricated like hip implants and other artificial prostheses, or unlubricated as in
high temperature sliding wear in which conventional lubricants cannot be used but in which the
formation of compacted oxide layer glazes have been observed to protect against wear. Tribology
plays an important role in manufacturing. In metal-forming operations, friction increases tool wear and
the power required to work a piece. This results in increased costs due to more frequent tool
replacement, loss of tolerance as tool dimensions shift, and greater forces required to shape a piece.
The use of lubricants which minimize direct surface contact reduces tool wear and power
requirements. Tribology is particularly important in today's world because so much energy is lost to
friction in mechanical components. To use less energy, we need to minimize the amount that is
wasted. Significant energy is lost due to friction in sliding interfaces. Therefore, finding ways to
minimize friction and wear through new technologies in tribology is critical to a greener and more
sustainable world .The behavior of sliding interfaces can be significantly affected by the roughness of
the surfaces of the two bodies. Surface roughness is typically measured using profilometry and is
often reported as the root-mean-square value of the height of the surface features, or asperities.
Other parameters that describe surface roughness are the average of the surface heights and the
skewness and kurtosis of the distribution of surface heights. The effect of roughness on friction and
wear is dependent on the type of sliding. For example, larger roughness will increase friction and
wear in an interface that is dominated by abrasion while it may decrease friction and wear in an
adhesive interface. Regardless, roughness is a key property of any sliding interface.

Tribology is an interdisciplinary field that includes mechanical engineering; materials

science and engineering; chemistry and chemical engineering; and more. This wide variety of skills is
necessary because many different physical phenomena occur at a sliding interface. There are also
many different areas of focus within tribology. Generally speaking, there are three major topics within
tribology: friction, wear and lubrication. Each of these is described in more detail below
 Figure 1.Sliding Interface Of Two surfaces

An emerging field within tribology is friction, wear and lubrication at the nanoscale, called
nanotribology. Nanotribology is relevant to a variety of novel small-scale devices as well as
characterization tools, all of which rely on the nanoscale contact between two materials to function.
Nanotribology is also scientifically fascinating because some of the "laws" that we use to describe
larger-scale tribological phenomena no longer apply at the nanoscale. A significant amount of
research in this area is performed using an atomic force microscope, where an extremely sharp probe
interacts with a surface. The contact between the probe and surface is only nanometers in size. Such
contacts have been found to exhibit unique and sometimes counter-intuitive behavior, and
understanding that behavior is the focus of many exciting research projects currently underway.

1.5 FRICTION AND WEAR CHARACTERISTICS

 1.5.1 Friction
Friction is the force resisting the relative motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, and material
elements sliding against each other. There are several types of friction.
1.5.2 Dry friction
Dry friction resists relative lateral motion of two solid surfaces in contact. Dry friction is
subdivided into static friction (stiction) between non-moving surfaces, and kinetic
friction between moving surfaces.
1.5.3 Fluid friction
Fluid friction describes the friction between layers of a viscous fluid that are moving relative
to each other.
1.5.4 Lubricated friction
Lubricated Friction is a case of fluid friction where a lubricant fluid separates two solid
surfaces
1.5.5 Skin friction
Skin Friction is a component of drag. the force resisting the motion of a fluid across the
surface of a body.
1.5.6 Internal friction
Internal friction is the force resisting motion between the elements making up a solid
material while it undergoes deformation.

1.6 Coefficient of friction

The coefficient of friction (COF), often symbolized by the Greek letter , is

a dimensionless scalar value which describes the ratio of the force of friction between two bodies and
the force pressing them together. The coefficient of friction depends on the materials used; for
example, ice on steel has a low coefficient of friction, while rubber on pavement has a high coefficient
of friction. Coefficients of friction range from near zero to greater than one.

For surfaces at rest relative to each other =S( coefficient of static friction).
This is usually larger than its kinetic counterpart. For surfaces in relative motion =K (the coefficient
of kinetic friction). The Coulomb friction is equal to Ff and the frictional force on each surface is
exerted in the direction opposite to its motion relative to the other surface.
 Figure 2. Coefficient Of Friction

1.7 WEAR CHARACTERISTICS

Wear is related to interactions between surfaces and specifically the

removal and deformation of material on a surface as a result of mechanical action of the opposite
surface. Wear can also be defined as a process where interaction between two surfaces or bounding
faces of solids within the working environment results in dimensional loss of one solid, with or without
any actual decoupling and loss of material. Aspects of the working environment which affect wear
include loads and features such as unidirectional sliding, reciprocating, rolling, and impact loads,
speed, temperature, but also different types of counter-bodies such as solid, liquid or gas and type of
contact ranging between single phase or multiphase, in which the last multiphase may combine liquid
with solid particles and gas bubbles.

1.8 WEAR MECHANISMS

1.8.1 Adhesive wear

Adhesive wear can be found between surfaces during frictional contact and generally
refers to unwanted displacement and attachment of wear debris and material compounds from one
surface to another. Two separate mechanisms operate between the surfaces.

1.8.2 Abrasive wear

Abrasive wear occurs when a hard rough surface slides across a softer surface. ASTM
International (formerly American Society for Testing and Materials) defines it as the loss of material
due to hard particles or hard protuberances that are forced against and move along a solid surface.
Abrasive wear is commonly classified according to the type of contact and the contact environment.

1.8.3 Surface fatigue

Surface fatigue is a process by which the surface of a material is weakened by cyclic
loading, which is one type of general material fatigue. Fatigue wear is produced when the wear
particles are detached by cyclic crack growth of micro cracks on the surface. These micro cracks are
either superficial cracks or subsurface cracks

1.8.4 Fretting wear

Fretting wear is the repeated cyclical rubbing between two surfaces. Over a period of
time fretting which will remove material from one or both surfaces in contact. It occurs typically in
bearings, although most bearings have their surfaces hardened to resist the problem. Another
problem occurs when cracks in either surface are created, known as fretting fatigue. It is the more
serious of the two phenomena because it can lead to catastrophic failure of the bearing. An
associated problem occurs when the small particles removed by wear are oxidized in air. The oxides
are usually harder than the underlying metal, so wear accelerates as the harder particles abrade the
metal surfaces further. Fretting corrosion acts in the same way, especially when water is present.
Unprotected bearings on large structures like bridges can suffer serious degradation in behavior,
especially when salt is used the during winter to deice the highways carried by the bridges. The
problem of fretting corrosion was involved in the Silver Bridge tragedy and the Mianus River
Bridge accident.

1.8.5 Erosive wear

Erosive wear can be defined as an extremely short sliding motion and is executed within
a short time interval. Erosive wear is caused by the impact of particles of solid or liquid against the
surface of an object. The impacting particles gradually remove material from the surface through
repeated deformations and cutting actions .It is a widely encountered mechanism in industry. Due to
the nature of the conveying process, piping systems are prone to wear when abrasive particles have
to be transported. The rate of erosive wear is dependent upon a number of factors.

1.8.6 Corrosion and oxidation wear

This kind of wear occur in a variety of situations both in lubricated and unlubricated
contacts. The fundamental cause of these forms of wear is chemical reaction between the worn
material and the corroding medium. This kind of wear is a mixture of corrosion, wear and the
synergistic term of corrosion-wear which is also called tribo-corrosion
 1.9 Lubricants and Lubrication

Lubricants are primarily used to separate two sliding surfaces to minimize friction and
wear. They also perform other functions, such as carrying heat and contaminants away from the
interface. Lubricants are often liquids, typically consisting of oil and added chemicals, called additives,
which help the oils better perform specific functions. However, there are some applications where
lubricants can be gases or even solids.

The basic premise of liquid lubrication is that, although there is resistance to shear within the fluid due
to its viscosity, that viscous resistance is much smaller than the frictional resistance during dry sliding.
The performance of a lubricated contact is therefore largely determined by viscosity. Viscosity is a
fluid's resistance to flow and is the ratio of shear stress to shear strain rate.

A fluid in which viscosity is a constant, i.e. there is a linear relationship between stress
and strain rate, is called Newtonian. However, in reality, many lubricants experience changes in
viscosity due to temperature, pressure and shear rate during operating, and so behave as non-
Newtonian fluids under some conditions. Controlling these variations is important because viscosity
plays a key role in determining lubricant film thickness. A very small viscosity will result in a film that is
too thin to prevent surface asperities from coming into contact, while a very large viscosity will result
in sufficient surface separation, but may also lead to unacceptably high viscous friction

Liquid lubricants are extremely effective and are certainly the most widely used types of
lubrication. However, there are some conditions or components where liquids are not an option. In
some cases, particularly those where light weight is important and the loads are low, an interface can
be lubricated by a gas. For example, in air bearings, a thin film of pressurized air can provide a low-
friction, load-bearing interface. Another alternative is using solids as a lubricant. Solid lubricants are
typically materials that provide low friction because there is little resistance to shear within the
materials themselves. For example, materials such as graphite or molybdenum disulfide are layered
and so can accommodate shear between their atomic layers. Other solid lubricants are based on soft
materials, such as noble metals, whose inherent resistance to shear stress is low.

Although solid lubricants are not viable in some cases, the number and variety of
applications that might use them, either instead of or in addition to a liquid, is growing rapidly due to
recent advancements in materials tribology.
 Figure 3 Types of Lubricants

1.10 PIN ON DISK TRIBOMETER

A Pin on Disc tribometer consists of a stationary "pin" under an applied load in

contact with a rotating disc. The pin can have any shape to simulate a specific contact, but spherical
tips are often used to simplify the contact geometry. Coefficient of friction is determined by the ratio of
the frictional force to the loading force on the pin. The pin on disc test has proved useful in providing a
simple wear and friction test for low friction coatings such as diamond-like carbon coatings on valve
train components in internal combustion engines. Once at est. is complete, the actual wear rate of the
sample and partner can be calculated by one of two ways. The rst is to use a prolometer to
measure the prole across the wear track and calculating the sectional area removed. If this is
multiplied by the wear track circumference the volume of material removed can be calculated and
thus the amount removed as a function of time, the wear rate (usually quoted in mm 3N/m) is found.
Most Tribometers now offer both rotation of the sample and/or line are reciprocating movement of the
sample. The choice will depend on the endues application. Useful standards for this test include
ASTMG99, ASTMG133 and DIN50324. The advantage of a wear test, when compared to in
dentations or scratch testing is that it can give a measure of the lifetime of a particular coating-
substrate system.
 Figure 4 Pin on Disk Method

2 EXPERIMENT

2.1 PREPARATION OF SAMPLES

The sample contains a mixture of ABS/PTFE/GRAPHITE with different ratios and
has been prepared in injection molding machine. The graphite content has been varied in three
different ratios (3%,6%,9%) ,while the PTFE content is kept at constant ratio i.e 5%. The prepared
sample is cutted into small pieces using laser cut with specific diameter (1mm dia) and has been
sticked to aluminum rod for experiment.

Figure 5. ABS/PTFE/GRAPHITE SAMPLE

 Figure 5. 1 ABS/PTFE/GRAPHITE SAMPLE

3 CONCLUSION

3.1.1 FUTURE WORK

1.1.1.1. The prepared sample will be tested in pin on disk tribometer at different load
(i.e.5N & 20N) at constant speed and velocity. The results obtained from the test will
be used for further studies