Role of nickel filler on friction and dry sliding wear behavior of bismaleimide nanocomposite

Abstract

Nano-sized metal particles filled polymer composites are finding numerous tribological applications in recent years. In the present work, the matrix properties were investigated by introducing nickel (Ni) nanoparticles (60-100 nm, weight fractions of 0.5-10 %) into a bismaleimide (BMI) resin. The influence of these particles on the microhardness, friction and dry sliding wear behavior were measured using microhardness tester, pin-ondisc wear set up. The experimental results indicated that the coefficient of friction and the specific wear rate (SWR) of BMI resin can be reduced at rather low weight fraction of Ni particles. The lowest SWR of 9 ×10 -6 mm 3/Nm (i.e. 50% lower than the value of neat BMI) was observed for the nanocomposite with Ni weight fraction of 1%. The incorporation of Ni particles leads to an increased hardness of BMI and the wear performance of the composites shows good correlation with the hardness. The results have been supplemented with scanning electron micrographs to help understand the possible wear mechanisms. © 2011 CAFET-INNOVA TECHNICAL SOCIETY.