The influence of roughness on tribological properties of nuclear grade graphite

The influence of surface roughness on tribological properties of graphite IG-11 was investigated on a standard SRV tester. The experimental condition was selected as: 30 N normal load, room temperature and a 10 Hz frequency with different strokes. The experiments environments included helium and air. Five types of roughness were studied in the experiments. The experiments revealed that the surface roughness greatly affected the graphite friction behavior. When the friction surface was smooth, the friction coefficient was high because of intensive adhesion accompanied by many pits at the friction surface. When the friction surface was rough, the adhesion was very poor, but the wear was excessive and generated many graphite particles at the friction surface. These particles can separate the friction surfaces, which reduced the friction action between them. For very rough specimens, the friction coefficient decreased with sliding velocity at about 0.004 m/s and then increases gradually.