Author(s)

F. I. El-Zahraa¹, G. T. Abdel-Jaber¹, M. I. Khashaba², W. Y. Ali³

¹Faculty of Engineering, Qena, South Valley University, Qena, Egypt.
²Faculty of Engineering, Minia University, El-Minia, Egypt.
³Faculty of Engineering, Taif University, Al-Taif, Saudi Arabia.

The tribological performance of the sliding bearings which are probably made of polymers, which is subjected to magnetic field, is of great intense. The wear of epoxy composites filled by metallic particles such as iron, copper and aluminum scratched by steel indenter is investigated. The wear scar width of the scratch was measured by an optical microscope. It was found that wear displayed by the scratch of epoxy filled by the metallic filling materials such as iron, copper and aluminum increased with increasing applied load. As the content of the metallic filling materials increased, wear slightly increased due to the reduction in cohesive stress inside the matrix as well as the epoxy transfer into the indenter surface might be responsible for that behavior. For epoxy filled by iron, when the magnetic field was applied to the contact area wear significantly decreased. Increasing the intensity of the magnetic field showed slight wear increase. Wear displayed by the scratch of epoxy filled by copper showed higher values than that observed for copper filled epoxy. Presence of the magnetic field might generate electric current at the contact area leading to an increase in the intensity of the electric static charge. Moreover, wear of epoxy filled by aluminum showed lower values than that observed for epoxy composites filled by copper and higher than that displayed by iron filled epoxy composites. Under the effect of magnetic field, wear significantly increased. This behavior could explained on the basis that the presence of magnetic field accompanied by the movement of the indenter in the epoxy composites generated electric current passing through the steel indenter which caused softening of the epoxy composites. In that condition removal of epoxy from the wear track was easier and epoxy transfer into the steel indenter was accelerated.

Wear, Epoxy Composites, Iron, Copper, Aluminum, Magnetic Field, Scratch

El-Zahraa, F. , Abdel-Jaber, G. , Khashaba, M. and Ali, W. (2016) Wear Displayed by the Scratch of Epoxy Composites Filled by Metallic Particles under the Influence of Magnetic Field. Materials Sciences and Applications, 7, 119-127. doi: 10.4236/msa.2016.72012.