| AVS 54th International Symposium | |
| Tribology | Friday Sessions |
| Session TR4+SE-FrM |
| Session: | Friction and Wear of Engineered Surfaces Macro- to Nanoscale Approaches |
| Presenter: | Y.T. Pei, University of Groningen, the Netherlands |
| Authors: | Y.T. Pei, University of Groningen, the Netherlands X.L. Bui, University of Groningen, the Netherlands X.B. Zhou, SKF Research and Development B.V., the Netherlands J.T.M. De Hosson, University of Groningen, the Netherlands |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
W-DLC coatings have been deposited on FKM, ACM and HNBR rubbers via unbalanced magnetron reactive sputtering from a W target in C2H2/Ar plasma. The surface morphology and fracture cross sections of uncoated and coated rubbers are characterized with high resolution SEM. The tribological behaviors of uncoated and coated rubbers have been investigated with ball-on-disc tribotest under dry sliding against 100Cr6 ball. The coefficients of friction (CoF) of uncoated rubbers are very high (μ > 1). Relatively high CoF of W-DLC coated FKM (about 0.6) is observed due to the gradual fracture and delamination of the coatings. In contrary, W DLC coated HNBR rubbers exhibit superior tribological performance with a very low CoF of 0.2-0.25 (comparable to that of Me-DLC coatings deposited on steel substrates). After 10000 sliding laps, almost no damage of the coatings is observed on the wear tracks. The micro-crack networks as deposited facilitate the flexibility of the coatings. The different surface roughness and mechanical properties of the rubber substrates explain the differences in the tribological performances of the coated rubbers. For soft and flexible substrates such as rubbers, metallic interlayer does not enhance the interfacial adhesion but negative effects are observed.