Dry sliding tribological properties of PI/UHMWPE blends for high speed application

Abstract PI/UHMWPE blends are going to be used as the bush material of sliding bearings under high speed dry condition in one project. Prior to the fabrication of these bearings, the tribological properties PI/UHMWPE blends with various component ratio under the specific service condition was investigated by using a pin-on-disk tribometer. The results revealed that the compression modulus of PI/UHMWPE blends increases with the increase in PI content. Furthermore, the coefficient of friction and wear rate decrease firstly and then increase slightly with the increase in PI content, both of which reach the minimum value when PI content is 70%. The analyses of transfer membrane indicate that both of UHMWPE and PI can transfer to the metal counterface, while the increase of PI content is more conducive to the increase of transfer membrane.