Counterface effects on the wear of a composite dry-bearing liner

Plastics-based dry-bearing liners used for flight control bearings in aircraft are usually mated against counterfaces of 440C stainless steel hardened to about 700 HV and finished to R_a ≈ 0.05 μm. In this paper experiments to examine the possibility of reducing liner wear by modifications to the counterface are described. Accelerated (pin-on-disc) tests were made against 440C stainless steel of varying hardness and roughness, electroplated with copper and cadmium, ion implanted with nitrogen, copper and cadmium, vacuum deposited with TiN and TiC, diffusion treated with nitrogen, boron, sulphur, Sn-Cu and Sn-Sb and coated with ceramics-cermets (Al₂O₃, Cr₂O₃, (Cr₂C₃)-Ni-Cr and WC-Co). The most important counterface properties influencing liner wear are the hardness and surface roughness, and for ceramic and cermet coatings, the harder and smoother the surface, the lower is the liner wear. No evidence was found to indicate that the chemical nature of the counterface has a major affect on the liner wear.