Wear Studies on Polytetrafluroethylene (PTFE) Composites: Taguchi Approach

The present research work is aimed at developing a new material for industrial application. From literature review and surveying sugar factories from nearby area, it is found that conventional bearing material (Babbitt and bronze) leads to high wear rate as well as high coefficient of friction. Now a day?s pure PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) is widely used as bearing material which is self lubricating and subjects to lower coefficient of friction, but problem with PTFE is that, it subjects to high wear rate, which can be reduced by adding suitable fillers. In this study, the effects of varying load, sliding distance, sliding velocity and filler content in PTFE are experimentally examined. A comparative analysis of three composites (PTFE, PTFE + 25% C and PTFE + 35% C) is presented showing how properties of PTFE can be improved by addition of filler content. A plan of experiment based on Taguchi technique, was performed to acquire data in controlled way. The results of experiments are presented in table which prove that the wear is strongly influenced by the composition of filler content. It was found that, by varying the different parameter like Load, Velocity and Sliding distance the PTFE containing 35% carbon percentage have the better wear performance.