Effect of Sliding Speed on Wear Characteristics of Polyurethane Seal

Hydraulic reciprocating seal has been widely used to prevent fluid leakage in hydraulic systems. Also, hydraulic reciprocating seal plays a significant role to provide lubricant film at contacting interface to minimize tribological problems due to sliding with counter material. To predict lifetime of hydraulic reciprocating seal, quantitative understanding of wear characteristics with respect to operating conditions such as normal force and sliding speed is needed. In this work, effect of sliding speed on wear of polyurethane (PU) hydraulic reciprocating seal were experimentally investigated using a pin-on-disk tribo-tester. The wear characteristics of PU specimens were quantitatively determined by comparing the confocal microscope data before and after test. It was found that the wear rate of PU specimens decreased from $4.9{\times}10^{-11}mm^3$ to $1.1{\times}10^{-11}mm^3/Nm$ as sliding speed increased from 120 mm/s to 940 mm/s. Also, it was observed that the friction decreased slightly as the sliding speed increased. Improvement of lubrication state with increasing sliding speed was likely to be responsible for this enhanced friction and wear characteristics. This result also suggests that decrease in sliding distance between PU elastomer and counter materials at lower sliding speed is preferred. Furthermore, the quantitative assessment of wear characteristics of PU specimen may be useful in prediction of lifetime of PU hydraulic reciprocating seal if the allowed degree of wear for failure of the seal is provided.

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