Sliding Wear Properties of HVOF Thermally Sprayed Nylon-11 and Nylon-11/Ceramic Composites on Steel

Polymer and polymer/ceramic composite coatings were produced by ball-milling 60 μm Nylon-11 together with nominal 10 vol.% of nano and multiscale ceramic reinforcements and by HVOF spraying these composite feedstocks onto steel substrates to produce semicrystalline micron and nanoscale reinforced polymer matrix composites. Room temperature dry sliding wear performance of pure Nylon-11, Nylon-11 reinforced with 7 nm silica, and multiscale Nylon-11/silica composite coatings incorporating 7-40 nm and 10 μm ceramic particles were characterized using a pin-on-disk tribometer. Coefficient of friction and wear rate were determined as a function of applied load and coating composition. Surface profilometry and scanning electron microscopy were used to characterize and analyze the coatings and wear scars. The pure Nylon-11 coating experienced less wear than the composites due to the occurrence of two additional wear mechanisms: abrasive and fatigue wear. This article is an invited paper selected from presentations at the 2007 International Thermal Spray Conference and has been expanded from the original presentation. It is simultaneously published in Global Coating Solutions, Proceedings of the 2007 International Thermal Spray Conference, Beijing, China, May 14-16, 2007, Basil R. Marple, Margaret M. Hyland, Yuk-Chiu Lau, Chang-Jiu Li, Rogerio S. Lima, and Ghislain Montavon, Ed., ASM International, Materials Park, OH, 2007.