Increased wear of aqueous lubricated short carbon fiber reinforced polyetheretherketone (PEEK/SCF) composites due to galvanic fiber corrosion

It was previously reported that under certain conditions an electric current that transgresses the interface of a short carbon fiber (SCF)/polyetheretherketone (PEEK) composite vs. a X10CrNiMoTi1810 steel pairing causes extensive galvanic corrosion of the compositeʹs short carbon fibers . In order to elucidate the influence of this phenomenon on the wear resistance of PEEK/SCF, different PEEK/SCF composites were exposed to unidirectional sliding wear under the same environmental conditions that led to fiber corrosion. Our results indicate that there is a mutual amplification of wear and fiber corrosion. Comparing different fiber types, we found the pitch based carbon fiber investigated is much more susceptible to galvanic corrosion than the polyacrylnitrile (PAN) based one. The pitch based carbon fiber corroded so severely that one of the PEEK/pitch SCF composites exhibited even a higher specific wear rate than neat PEEK.