Abstract
Fabric composites are widely employed in self-lubricating bearing liners as solid lubrication materials. Although the tribological behaviors of fabric composites have been extensively studied, the cryogenic tribological properties and mechanisms have been scarcely reported and are largely unclear to instruct material design for aerospace and other high-tech applications. Herein, the tribological properties of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE)-based hybrid-fabric composites were investigated at cryogenic and ambient temperatures in the form of pin-on-disk friction under heavy loads. The results suggest that the friction coefficients of the hybrid-fabric composites obviously increase with a decrease in wear when the temperature drops from 25 to −150 °C. Moreover, thermoplastic polyetherimide (PEI), as an adhesive for fabric composites, has better cryogenic lubrication performance than thermosetting phenol formaldehyde (PF) resin, which can be attributed to the flexible chemical structure of PEI. The excellent lubrication performance of hybrid-fabric composites is attributed to the transfer film formed by PTFE fibers on the surface of fabrics.
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The financial support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51935006, 52105224, 52175119), the Foundation of Key Laboratory of National Defense Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. CXJJ-22S047), and the Key Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. XDPB24) were gratefully acknowledged.
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Tianbao MA. He received his B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from Northeastern University, Shenyang, China, in 2003, and received his Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2007. He is currently a professor of State Key Laboratory of Tribology in Advanced Equipment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, and Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. His research areas include fundamentals of friction, superlubricity, and tribology at extreme conditions. He has authored more than 90 peer-reviewed journal articles in related fields.
Liming TAO. He received his B.S. degree from Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China, in 2005, and received his Ph.D. degree in polymer chemistry and physics from Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, in 2010. Now he is working as an associate researcher in Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Wear and Protection of Materials, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, China. His research interest is special engineering plastics, polymer tribology, and functional polymers and their composite materials.
Mingkun XU. He received his B.S. degree from China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao, China, in 2019. Now he is a Ph.D. candidate at Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China and University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. His current research focuses on the preparation and tribological properties of high-performance fiber fabric composites.
Zidan WANG. She is a Ph.D. student at State Key Laboratory of Tribology in Advanced Equipment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. Her research interests include the design, preparation, and characterization of fabric composites for applications in the industry, especially for plain bearing at cryogenic temperature.
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Xu, M., Wang, Z., Guo, L. et al. Tribological properties of PTFE-based fabric composites at cryogenic temperature. Friction 12, 245–257 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40544-023-0746-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40544-023-0746-x