Friction and Wear Properties of Potassium Titanate Whiskers Reinforced PTFE Composites

Potassium titanate whiskers (PTW) is a promising reinforcer with good abrasion proof properties. Tribo10gica1 performance of PTW reinforced PTFE composites (PTW-PTFE) was investigated. The results showed that addition of PTW caused an increase in wear resistance of PTFE. The wear of PTW-PTFE composites was only about one tenth of PTFE. Compare to PTFE, both of the limit loading and the limit sliding speed of PTW-PTFE increase 10% and 60% respectively. The friction coefficient and hardness of PTW-PTFE were slightly changed. The friction coefficient of PTW-PTFE was much steadier than that of PTFE. Both PTFE and PTW-PTFE had lower wear mass loss but higher wear traces surface at 200°C than that at 25°C. The PTW with larger size had better wear resistance. SEM showed that PTW were effective in impeding large-scale fragmentation of PTFE, thereby reducing the wear.