| Abstract: | As a potential artificial cartilage material,the friction and wear properties of nano-hydroxy apatite(HA)particles filled poly(vinyl alcohol)hydrogel(PVA-H)composites sliding against stainless steel disk under water lubrication condition were studied by using a four ball tester.The worn surfaces were investigated by using a scanning electron microscope(SEM)to determine the wear mechanisms.Experimental results show that filling HA to PVA-H will slightly increase the friction coefficient of composites with the increasing of HA content under water lubrication condition.Meanwhile,HA particles can greatly reduce the wear mass loss of the PVA-H composites and enhance the load carrying capacity,the wear loss of the 1 wt% HA reinforced PVA-H composites can be decreased by 30 percent under 2.0 MPa to 50 percent under 0.5 MPa contact pressure.We also found that 2 wt% HA content of composites increase the wear mass loss under the same condition.SEM examination shows that the worn surface of low HA containing(1 wt%)composites are much smoother than that of pure PVA-H or high HA containing(2 wt%)composites under 1.5 MPa contact pressure.It is also found that there are big hole and big reunited HA particles in the surface of 2 wt% HA containing composites,which leads to deterioration of the surface of samples under higher loads in water lubrication.These results may be useful in the tribological design of artificial articular cartilage material. |
