Wear performance of a bulk liquid crystal polymer and its short-fibre composites

Abstract

The wear behaviour of short-fibre reinforced composites having a liquid crystal polymer (LCP) matrix was investigated under two extremely different types of wear loading. Sliding wear tests against smooth steel at different values of sliding speed v and contact pressure p revealed that reinforcing LCP with carbon fibres, or glass fibres plus mineral filler and graphite flake, was much more effective in improving the composites' wear resistance than a reinforcement with glass fibres only. The same trend holds as far as the limiting pv factor was concerned. No improvement in wear resistance due to fibre reinforcement could be found under abrasive wear conditions. The layered structure of the unfilled LCP gave rise to a large anisotropy in wear rate in different sliding directions, but this was almost eliminated by the addition of short fibres under sliding wear conditions. © 1986.