THE TRIBOLOGICAL PROPERTIES OF PTFE MODIFIED WITH CHALCOPYRITE

In present work it has been studied the physical-mechanical and tribological properties of the compositional material which was obtained in the PTFE base with chalcopyrite fine dispersed concentrate as fillers. The PTFE-chalcopyrite composites were prepared by powder metallurgy route containing chalcopyrite particles (2.5, 5 and 10 wt %). The tests have been performed in the friction machine under 0.7 MPa load where as a counterpart the gray cast iron was used. From the beginning, the weight wear was measured after passing some velocity steps (0.25–1.25 m/sec). The worn surfaces of the tested composites and the cast iron samples after working as a tribological pair were analyzed using SEM/EDX methods. The obtained results have shown that the incorporation of optimal quantity (~5 wt %) chalcopyrite particles into PTFE matrix drastically (>102 times) improves the wear resistance comparatively to the unfilled PTFE in the 0.25–1.25 m/sec friction velocity range. In the same testing conditions by the analysis of the obtained results it is determined that at the low velocity friction (<1 m/sec) the newly developed composite material has 10–15 times lower wear intensity than the best existing tribo–technical purpose commercial material “superfluvis”, therefore the obtained composite can be considered as a quite inexpensive and efficient tribological material. DOI:  https://doi.org/10.15544/balttrib.2017.13