Friction and dry sliding wear behaviour of Ni filled epoxy nanocomposite

Nanosized metal particle filled polymer composites are finding numerous tribological applications in recent years. In the present work, the matrix properties were investigated by introducing nickel nanoparticles (60–100 nm, filler content of 0·5–10 wt-%) into epoxy resin. The influence of these particles on friction and dry sliding wear behaviour was measured using a pin on disc wear set-up. The experimental results indicated that the coefficient of friction and the specific wear rate of epoxy resin can be reduced with a rather low weight fraction of Ni particles. The lowest specific wear rate of 0·64×10−4 mm3 N−1 m−1 (compared to neat resin’s value of 2·2×10−4 mm3 N−1 m−1) was observed for composites with the filler content of 0·5 wt-%. The reinforcement of Ni particles leads to improved mechanical properties of the epoxy composites. The results have been supplemented with scanning electron micrographs to help understand the possible wear mechanisms.