Tribological Behavior of UHMWPE Reinforced with Graphene Oxide Nanosheets

By Zhixin Tai, Yuanfeng Chen, Yingfei An, Xingbin Yan, Qifan Xue. Tribology letter, 2012

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In this article, a series of graphene oxide (GO)/ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) composites are successfully fabricated through an optimized toluene-assisted mixing followed by hot-pressing. The mechanical and tribological properties of pure UHMWPE and the GO/UHMWPE composites are investigated using a micro-hardness tester and a high speed reciprocating friction testing machine. Also, the wear surfaces of GO/UHMWPE composites are observed by a scanning electron microscope (SEM), to analyze the tribological behavior of the GO/UHMWPE composites. The results show that, when the content of GO nanosheets is up to 1.0 wt%, both the hardness and wear resistance of the composites are improved significantly, while the friction coefficient increases lightly. After adding GO, the tribological behavior of the GO/UHMWPE composites transforms from fatigue wear to abrasive wear associated with the generation of a transfer layer on the contact surface, which efficiently reduced the wear rate of the GO/UHMWPE composites.

Subfields: Materials Chemistry, Mechanics of Materials, Surgery

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/35d720fb65d5bcf5c71236c5ea94c50b784e2173