WEAR OF UNIDIRECTIONAL POLYMER MATRIX COMPOSITES WITH FIBER ORIENTATION IN THE PLANE OF CONTACT

In a previous paper, a simple model for failure and wear of unidirecti onal fibre-reinforced polymer composites was proposed. The model relat es fiber stresses and sliding contact conditions to bulk wear rates fo r fiber orientation parallel to the sliding direction. In this work, t he model has been extended to examine the case where the fibers are or iented transverse to the sliding direction, while still parallel to th e plane of contact. When simulating the counterface contact with an id eal hemispherical asperity, the model overpredicts wear rates for the transverse fiber orientation. However, when the counterface contact is simulated according to observed composite material transfer and corre sponding surface topographical changes, indicating deviation from an i deal hemispherical asperity to a more general elongated or ellipsoidal form, the model correlation compares more favorably with existing fri ction and wear test data in the literature.