Effect of material hardness, counter-face hardness and load on the tribological properties of virgin and glass filled PTFE using Taguchi Approach

Abstract

The present paper aims at evaluating the tribological performance of virgin and glass fiber filled PTFE against different steel counterfaces to co-relate the effect of material and counterface hardness on friction and wear performance. The influence of load on friction and wear of virgin and glass fiber filled PTFE is also studied. The experiments were designed according to Taguchi's L18 orthogonal array and conducted on a pin on disc reciprocating tribometer. Analysis of variance was used to determine the effect of various parameters on coefficient of friction and wear rate. The results revealed that the counterface hardness is the dominant factor affecting the COF and the material hardness is the dominant factor influencing the wear rate. Regression analysis was carried out to predict the outcomes of the experiments. The predicted and measured values show a good degree of proximity. Further, confirmation tests were also conducted with the random parameter combinations for validation of the regression equations. Furthermore, contour plot analysis has also been carried out to ascertain the ranges of COF and wear rate for different settings of control factors.