MECHANICAL PROPERTIES AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON THE FRICTION AND WEAR OF THE CARBON FIBERS REINFORCED POLYAMIDE 1010

The nylon composites were prepared with the polyamide 1010 reinforced by shorten PAN carbon fibers. The tensile strength and surface hardness were measured for the carbon reinforced nylon composites in different CF contents. It was found in this study that the carbon fibers reinforcements enhanced the tensile strength and hardness, and reduced the friction coefficients and wear rates of the nylon composites compared with the neat nylon materials. The maximum tensile strength in value of 82 MPa was obtained when the carbon fibers were filled in 20 vol%. The linear relation between hardness and tensile strength of the carbon fibers reinforced nylon composites was presented after making regression of the experimental data. The test results in this paper showed that the oxidized treatment on carbon fiber surface greatly improved the felting property of carbon fibers in nylon substrates. Therefore, the tensile strength of the oxidized carbon fiber reinforced nylon composites was about 10% higher than that filled with the untreated carbon fibers. The experiments of the wear of nylon composites against carbon steel revealed that the composite's friction coefficients and wear rates were closely in relation to the tensile strength and hardness. When the tensile strength or hardness increased, the friction coefficients and wear rates decreased. The mathematical analysis stated that the friction coefficients and wear rates were inversely proportional to the tensile strength of the nylon composites. However, they had a second order polynomial equation to the hardness. The friction coefficients and wear rates changed with the carbon fiber contents in a decay exponent curve.