Effects of surface texturing on the tribological behaviors of PEO/PTFE coating on aluminum alloy for heavy-load and long-performance applications
Cheng Lu, Peiying Shi, Jingjing Yang, Junhong Jia, Erqing Xie, Yuan Sun
Abstract
This paper reports on the fabrication and tribological performances of surface textured plasma electrolytic oxidized (PEO) coatings containing polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) on aluminum alloy (PEO/PTFE). The ordered arrays of circular dimples were created on PEO ceramic coating surface by laser surface texturing and vacuum penetration of nanosized-PTFE was followed in vacuum chamber. The tribological properties of PEO/PTFE and textured PEO/PTFE coatings were evaluated at load of 5–25 N using a UMT-4 tribometer under dry condition. The results shown that surface texturing can effectively reduce the friction coefficient of contact interface for 72,000 cycles at 5 N and greatly improve the bearing capacity of PEO/PTFE coating, because of the constantly compensation of lubricating PTFE film in the wear track. This study established a new approach to fabricate self-lubricating ceramic PEO coating on aluminum alloys.