Numerical and Experimental Investigation of Correlation between Wear and Temperature in Dry Sliding of Polyethylene-Zinc Oxide Nanocomposite

Nowadays, many attempts have been made to replace conventional materials with polymers which have the advantage of having less weight and higher formability. Polymers besides these advantages have some shortcomings. One method to overcome these shortcomings is to strengthen them by adding other materials to polymers. As an example, polymer nanocomposites are made by adding nanoparticles to polymers to enhance their tribological performance. In this paper, an experimental and numerical study on the correlation between temperature rise and the wear rate in the polyethylene (PE) with 10% ZnO nanoparticles has been investigated. A comparison between pure PE and polymer nanocomposite has been made. A 3D finite element model has been developed in Abaqus to study the wear in the contact of pin and the disk. The results predicted by the FE model are compared to the experimental data obtained in this research using the pin on disk test rig. According to the results, a non-linear relation between temperature changes and wear rate has been developed.