Wear 271 (2011) 2269–2273

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Wear
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/wear

Characteristics of fretting wear resistance for unfilled engineering thermoplastics

Z.H. Tan, Q. Guo ∗ , Z.P. Zhao, H.B. Liu, L.X. Wang
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai 201800, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Fretting wear testings were conducted with twelve unfilled engineering thermoplastics against a steel (E
Received 30 August 2010 52100, AISI) ball under two different amplitudes conditions. Cast iron (HT25-47) and carbon steel (C1045,
Received in revised form 27 February 2011 AISI) were used as references. The results showed that the tested materials could be arranged in order
Accepted 28 February 2011
of ascending wear resistance as follows: PPS, ABS, PSU, PC, PTFE, MCPA, PA1010, HT25-47, PP, C1045,
UHMWPE, HDPE, POM, and PI. This arrangement only altered slightly when the testing amplitude was
changed. In general, plastics did not produce wear on metallic counterpart, however, wear evidences
Keywords:
were found on the steel balls paired with PSU, MCPA and POM. The interpretation will show how the
Thermoplastic
Fretting wear
results are connected with the polymeric structures and some of the important intrinsic properties of
Polymer structure the polymers, i.e. glass transition temperature Tg , melting point Tm and dielectric constant ε.
Wear resistance mechanism © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Polyimide
PTFE

1. Introduction 2. Experimental

Fretting wear differs from other types of wear in two aspects:
(1) very low relative displacement velocity between the con-
tact surfaces, and (2) most parts of wear debris trapped in the
contact zone [1]. Due to there is very limited opportunity to
escape, the debris, known as third body, could cause severe
damage on the contact zones in which a lot of micro cracks
are contained [2,3]. Under certain conditions, one or several
of the cracks could be accelerated to propagate into the fatal
crackings. Those are the sources of fretting fatigue. This kind
of damages cannot be neglected in industries. On the contrary,
fretting problems will appear more frequently on report as the
high speed and large power machine are unprecedentedly devel-
oped.
Much work has so far been done on fretting [3–8]. How-
ever, more effort was concerned with metallic materials rather
than polymers. In this study, twelve plastics were selected for
testing. Those are the materials popularly used in machinery
buildings. No filler was added into the polymeric substrates
so as to exclude all of the external factors to obtain a
clear picture about the relationship between the fretting wear
behaviours and the structures and properties of the poly-
mers.
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 21 69982791; fax: +86 21 69982840.
E-mail address: guoq@shu.edu.cn (Q. Guo).
The tests were carried out with a fretting tester consisting
essentially of an electromagnetic exciter through which the ampli-
tude and frequency could be controlled. The details of the tester
were published in previous paper [7]. Three pair specimens of ball
on plane configuration were tested in parallel at same time. The
upper specimen was a steel (E 52100 AISI) ball, 8 mm in diam-
eter, treated to a hardness of 20 HRC in a vacuum furnace. The
lower specimen (referred to as specimen hereafter) was made of
the testing materials (Table 1) in a block form with dimensions
of 10 mm × 10 mm × 15 mm. The testing materials were twelve
unfilled thermoplastics including PPS, PTFE, PI, PSU, PC, ABS, MCPA,
PA1010, PP, POM, UHMWPE and HDPE, and two metallic materials,
as reference, including a carbon steel (C1045, AISI) and cast iron
(HT25-47: 3.21C, 0.9Mn, 1.6Si, 0.075P, 0.107S). All specimens were
finished to a roughness Ra = 0.8 ␮m and degreased with acetone and
distilled water. Then they were kept in desiccators for 30 days prior
to testing.
Experiments were conducted under the conditions of dry fric-
tion in room atmosphere, keeping the temperature at about 25 ◦ C
and relative humidity under RH 80%. Testing parameters were set
into two groups: (1) S–A: amplitude A = 50 ␮m, (2) L–A: amplitude
A = 100 ␮m, the other parameters were just the same in the two
groups as follows: frequency f = 100 Hz, loading L = 3.3 N and num-
ber of cycles N = 3.6 × 105 .
Wear amounts were determined with an optimal microscope,
the averages of every three parallel test results of a material were
adopted to publish. The wear scars were further examined by
means of scanning electron microscope (SEM) and electron probe

0043-1648/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.wear.2011.02.029
2270 Z.H. Tan et al. / Wear 271 (2011) 2269–2273

Nomenclature

Tg glass transition temperature of plastics

Tm melting point of plastics
ε dielectric constant of polymer materials
S area of fretted scar on the lower specimens of plas-
tics or metals
W area of fretted scar on the steel balls
S–A first set of fretting testing parameters: amplitude
50 ␮m, frequency 100 Hz, load 3.3 N, number of
cycles 3.6 × 105
L–A second set of fretting testing parameters: amplitude
100 ␮m, frequency 100 Hz, load 3.3 N, number of
cycles 3.6 × 105

microanalysis (EPMA) for more information in details about the

characteristics of fretting wear. Fig. 1. SEM of fretting scar on POM specimen surface under S–A condition.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Fretting wear resistance of the thermoplastics

The testing results of fretting wear and the characteristics of

the wear scars and debris were shown in Tables 2 and 3, respec-
tively. Under both S–A and L–A conditions, part of the testing
material, including PSU, HT25-47, C1045, MCPA and POM, were
distinguished from the rest by their behaviours that they could
induce evident wear on the counterpart, the steel ball. And, it is
different from the expecting that the most severe wear on the steel
ball were not induced by the metallic material, HT25-47 or C1045,
but by the polymer PSU. Examining the wear scars on the balls
against PSU, HT25-47 and C1045, one could find a lot of loose ferric
oxides, in reddish, existed and pile up around the scar boundaries.
However, nearly no loose metallic debris were found on ball scars
contacted with MCPA and POM, in these cases, some of the debris
were embedded in the plastic surfaces marking the rough scars (as
shown by the white arrows in Fig. 1). In contrast, the fretting scars
on the other polymers, that did not cause wear on steel, were the Fig. 2. SEM of fretting scar on PC specimen surface under S–A condition.
neat figures with gentle mark and neat boundary (Fig. 2).
Because the polymers are so different from one to another in (3) Having adequate anti-deformation ability to withstand friction
their wear resistance, it could be assumed that a polymer, whether action and induce damage on the opposite part.
or not it can produce wear on a steel ball, is related to the following
factors: Therefore, only those polymers that are satisfied with all the
three factors can cause wear damage on the steel [8]. Obviously,
(1) Having a strong adhesion ability to produce frictional heat these factors are in turn related to the structures and properties,
which would accelerate the oxidation on the metallic surface. on which a further discussion will be given later on.
(2) Having enough high cohesive energy to ensure the fretting Usually, the measurement of wear scar could be used to deter-
damage occurred not always on the polymeric part. mine the wear resistance of the testing material. By this method, the

Table 1
Twelve types of selected unfilled thermoplastics and their aggregation state structure, Tg or Tm and ε.

Polymer Name Aggregation state structure Tg /◦ C Tm /◦ C ε on 60 Hz

PPS Polyphenylene sulfide Crystalline polymer – 295 3.0

PTFE Polytetrafluoroethylene Crystalline polymer – 327 2.0
MCPA Monomer casting polyamide Crystalline polymer – 216 3.6
PA1010 Polyamide-1010 Crystalline polymer – 210 3.2
PP Polypropylene Crystalline polymer – 176 2.2
UHMWPE Ultra high molecular weight polyethylene Crystalline polymer – 141 2.3
HDPE High density polyethylene Crystalline polymer – 137 2.3
POM Polyoxymethylene Crystalline polymer – 175 3.7
ABS Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene Amorphous polymer 120 – 2.9
PSU Polysulfone Amorphous polymer 190 – 3.1
PI Polyimide Amorphous polymer 235 – 3.4
PC Polycarbonate Amorphous polymer 150 – 3.1
 Z.H. Tan et al. / Wear 271 (2011) 2269–2273 2271

Table 2
Fretting wear amounts S and W of plastics and metals under S–A and L–A parameters conditions.

Specimen S under S–A/mm2 S under L–A/mm2 W under S–A/mm2 W under L–A/mm2

PPS 1.78 2.21 0 0

ABS 1.09 1.37 0 0
PSU 0.76 1.17 0.55 1.01
PC 0.72 1.26 0 0
PTFE 0.67 1.25 0 0
MCPA 0.62 1.15 0.17 0.25
PA1010 0.57 1.05 0 0
HT25-47 0.49 1.07 0.47 0.79
PP 0.48 0.84 0 0
C1045 0.39 0.54 0.34 0.64
UHMWPE 0.38 0.39 0 0
HDPE 0.33 0.43 0 0
POM 0.22 0.48 0.16 0.24
PI 0.15 0.24 0 0

Table 3
Characteristic descriptions of wear scar and debris for the tested materials.

Categories Material Wear characteristic description Specimen wear mechanisms SB wear mechanisms

PSU Wear scar caused on SB, ferric oxide

Plastic deformation, abrasion, Corrosion, adhesion transfer,
MCPA debris embedded in PL and piled high on
adhesion abrasion
1. SB would be worn POM PSU resulting in a rough scar formed
HT25-47 Wear scar on SB, ferric oxide Corrosion, adhesion, abrasion, Corrosion, adhesion transfer,
debris in MT scar and piling on ploughing abrasion
MT, rough MT scar
C1045
PI No wear on SB, particulate polymer
2. Particle PL debris Adhesion No wear on SB
ABS debris, smooth PL scar
PC No wear on SB, plastic flow and fibriform
Plastic deformation, plastic flow,
3. Fibriform PL debris PA1010 polymer debris, some grooved tracks in No wear on SB
adhesion
PP PL scar
HDPE No wear on SB, plastic deformation and
4. Plastic deformation no polymer debris, stria and ripple in PL Plastic deformation No wear on SB

UHMWPE scar
PTFE No wear on SB, plate-like
5. Plate-like PL debris polymer debris and transferred Adhesion transfer No wear on SB
PPS
film on SB, smooth PL scar

Note: Only in the above table, SB: steel ball, PL: polymer or plastic specimen, MT: metallic specimen.

tested materials, in this study, could be ranked as PPS, ABS, PSU, PC, 2.0
PTFE, MCPA, PA1010, HT25-47, PP, C1045, UHMWPE, HDPE, POM PPS
Tg ~ S
and PI, in order of the increasing fretting wear resistance. When
the testing amplitude was increased to 100 ␮m, this arrangement Tm ~ S
would not be differed significantly. UHMWPE showed less sensi- 1.5
S ( mm )
2

tivity towards varying amplitude. It was concluded that PI, HDPE

and UHMWPE demonstrate their better fretting wear resistance as
compared to the other plastics because they did not cause any sig- ABS
nificant wear on the steel ball with only minor wear damage upon 1.0
themselves. PSU
PC PTFE
MCPA
3.2. Correlation between the Tg or Tm of the thermoplastics and
0.5 PP
their fretting wear resistance UHMWPE PA1010
HDPE POM
Different kinds of damages could be found on the fretting scars, PI
including debris, cracks, plastic deformation and plastic flow, etc.
0.0
The occurrence of these damages is essentially related to the inter- 100 150 200 250 300 350
action of two aspects, one is the heat resistance of the testing o
materials and the other is the frictional heat developed between Tg or Tm ( C )
the contacting points.
Fig. 3. Relation between Tg of amorphous polymers or Tm of crystalline polymers
For the amorphous polymers such as PSU, PC, ABS and PI, due to
and their S under S–A condition.
their high molecule chain stiffness and strong interaction between
molecule chains, a large amount of frictional heat will certainly be
produced in the friction process. Therefore, their wear properties oped. However, in compared with polymers PC and ABS, in which
will be mostly dependent on the heat resistance (Fig. 3 and Table 4). severe adhesive damages with plastic deformation and plastic flow
For example, PI, a polymer with high glass transition temperature were taking place. This is attributed to the much lower Tg that it
Tg , featuring the high heat resistance, demonstrated an excellent has (Table 3).
anti-wear performance. The fretting scar was rather small and no In regard to the semicrystalline or crystalline polymers, less
plastic damage was found, even though strong heating was devel- amount of frictional heat would be produced owing to their
2272 Z.H. Tan et al. / Wear 271 (2011) 2269–2273

Table 4
Effects of structure factors characterized by Tg or Tm on fretting wear for tested unfilled thermoplastics.

Plastic Change trend of Tg or Structure Frictional heat Frictional heat Change trend of wear
Tm characteristics of resistance of plastics production during amount
crystalline or fretting
amorphous polymer

PTFE
PPS High molecular chains
MCPA symmetry, regularity,
PA1010 mostly high flexibility, Minor factor for wear Decisive factor for wear
Descending of Tm Descending
PP weak or slightly high amount, descending amount, descending
POM interaction of the
UHMWPE molecular chains
HDPE
PI High molecule chain
Invariably high
PSU stiffness, strong Decisive factor for wear
Descending of Tg frictional heat, minor Ascending
PC interaction of molecule amount, descending
factor for wear amount
ABS chains

excellent structures characterized by the high degree symmetry, 2.0

regularity and flexibility of molecule chains and weak coherence
of the chains. Of course, related to this structure, the melting point PPS
Tm of the polymer is predicted to be low. This is the situation of
polymers HDPE and UHMWPE, even though the Tm is low, these 1.5
polymers were resulted in low wear. From which it is seen that,
for this kind of polymers, the frictional heat developed is the first
dominant factor to wear. This could be further demonstrated by the ABS
S (mm )
2

testings with polymers PP, PA1010, PPS and PTFE, in which both 1.0

higher Tm and larger amount of frictional heat would come with
the increase in the polymeric chain stiffness or interaction force,
but more wear results have received.
Because both wear resistance and melting point or glass transi-
tion point are related to structures of the polymers, the things could
be much easy if a way could be found by which the wear proper-
ties could be estimated by the physical parameters. As shown in
Fig. 3, the linear relationships were established between the wear
properties and Tg or Tm , belonging to two different structural poly-
mers, respectively. Two exceptions were found with polymers PPS
and PSU. The excessive wear in PPS was caused by the ample plate
like debris formed successively during fretting. Similarly, the accel-
erated wear in PSU was due to the metallic oxide debris from the
counterpart, as mentioned above. It is reminded that in wear testing
“a slight change in conditions may completely alter the impor-
tance of individual factors or change their mode of interaction” as
indicated in a famous book [9].
3.3. Correlation between the ε of the thermoplastics and their
fretting wear resistance
The dielectric constant ε of a thermoplastic depends on the
polymer molecular polarity and other related structural factors
including interaction, symmetry, regularity and flexibility of molec-
ular chains. Thus, ε could give significant effect on the wear
properties of the polymer in teams of the related structures.
Amorphous polymers such as PSU, PC, ABS and PI, they have
a lower degree of molecular chains symmetry and regularity,
and higher degree of chains interaction and chains stiffness, their
dielectric constants are normally greater than 2.5. This kind of poly-
mers usually produce a large sum of frictional heat, thus their wear
resistance will depend mainly on their heat resistance. The ε value
would increase with the stronger interaction between molecular
chains and higher chain stiffness, and so does the heat resistance,
as mentioned. That means the heat resistances could be related to
ε, and the ε value could be therefore used to determine the wear
properties. So, one could predict, a high ε value polymer would
PSU
PTFE PC
MCPA
0.5 PP PA1010
UHMWPE
HDPE
POM
PI
0.0
1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0
ε
Fig. 4. Relation between ε of the amorphous or crystalline polymers and their S
under S–A condition.
have a good wear resistance properties, as depicted by PI (Fig. 4
and Table 5).
As for the crystalline polymers, in inverse to the amorphous
kinds, their ε values are increasing with the increase in their molec-
ular chain flexibility, but not in stiffness. This kind of polymers could
be divided into two groups based on their ε values: (1) ε < 2.5. This
group includes HDPE, UHMWPE, PP and PTFE. Excepting PTFE, they
possess relatively weak molecular chains interaction and higher
flexibility, that could be related to the low heat resistance and less
produced frictional heat of the polymers. Low friction heat plays
a predominant role during fretting wear. While their ε increase
with molecular chain flexibility, for example, HDPE has greater ε
than PP. It is understandable that HDPE had a small frictional heat
production during fretting and minor fretting wear. PTFE has the
smallest ε due to its special stiff molecular chains which can then
produce a high wear amount. (2) ε > 2.5. POM, MCPA, PA1010, and
PPS belong to this group. Though their molecular chain flexibility is
relatively high, they have relatively high interaction of molecular
chains which results in high frictional heat and heat resistance. In
this case, high friction heat is a predominant factor in determining
the fretting wear amount. Similarly, for this group of polymers, their
( increases with decreasing molecular chain stiffness and interac-
tion. Molecular chains of POM, for example, are more flexible than
ones of MCPA (e.g. POM has a greater ε than MCPA). Therefore, dur-
 Z.H. Tan et al. / Wear 271 (2011) 2269–2273 2273

Table 5
Effects of structure factors characterized by ε on fretting wear for tested unfilled thermoplastics.

Plastic Change range and Structure characteristics of Frictional heat Frictional heat Change trend of wear
trend of ε crystalline or amorphous polymer resistance of plastics production during amount
fretting

POM High molecular chains symmetry,

PA1010 regularity, mostly high flexibility, Minor factor for wear Decisive factor for wear
descending, ε > 2.5 Ascending
MCPA slightly high interaction of the amount, ascending amount, ascending
PPS molecular chains
HDPE Excellent molecular chains Decisive factor for wear
UHMWPE symmetry and regularity, mostly Minor factor for wear amount, invariably low
Descending, ε < 2.5 Ascending
PP high flexibility, weak molecular amount, ascending frictional heat,
PTFE chains interaction ascending
PI
High molecule chain stiffness, Minor factor for wear
PC Decisive factor for wear
Descending, ε > 2.5 strong interaction of molecule amount, invariably Ascending
PSU amount, descending
chains high frictional heat
ABS

ing the fretting process, POM has less frictional heat production or
wear than MCPA.
In Fig. 4, the wear amount of polymers was plotted vs. ε. Accord-
ing to ε value the diagram was divided into two distinct regions. In
the ε < 2.5 region, the wear amount of crystalline or semi-crystalline
polymers rises with a decrease of ε, and low frictional heat is deci-
sive factor for wear amount. In the ε > 2.5 region, the plastics could
be divided into two sub-groups: the amorphous plastics and the
crystalline plastics. For both groups of plastics, their wear amount
had a linear reciprocal relation with ε. Only PA1010 deviates obvi-
ously from the crystalline plastics line due to its hydrogen bond
structure.
in polymer, the physical parameters, such as Tg or Tm , and ε,
are also determined by the polymeric structures themselves.
Thus, there could be a close relationship between the physi-
cal parameters and the wear amount. It is found, in the study,
that the wear amount decreases with the increase in Tg of the
amorphous polymers or the decrease in Tm of the crystalline
polymers, respectively. In the region of ε < 2.5, the wear amount
increases with the decrease in ε for several crystalline polymers.
In the region of ε > 2.5, the wear amount decreases linearly with
the increase in ε for both amorphous and crystalline polymers.
Acknowledgments

4. Conclusions We thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China

(1) Wear resistant properties of twelve unfilled thermoplastics
were determined when the polymers were in contact with a
steel ball during fretting. Two metallic materials were used as
reference. Under the testing condition of amplitude 50 ␮m, fre-
quency 100 Hz, load 3.3 N, and number of cycles 3.6 × 105 , the
tested polymers could be arranged as PPS, ABS, PSU, PC, PTFE,
MCPA, PA1010, HT25-47, PP, C1045, UHMWPE, HDPE, POM, and
PI in order of their increasing wear resistance. This arrange-
ment would not be differed significantly if the testing amplitude
was changed to 100 ␮m. PSU produced severer wear on both
sides of the contact, steel ball and polymer itself. PI, HDPE and
UHMWPE demonstrated the better wear resistance than the
other polymers.
(2) The wear amount on the plastic was determined by its heat
resistance and the frictional heat that it produced. These prop-
erties were in turn depended on the molecular chain structure
and aggregate state structure of the polymer. It is known that,
(Fund No. 50975167) and Shanghai Leading Academic Discipline
Project (Project No. S30107) for continuing support to this research.
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