A method to determine wear rates of fibers and its application to polymeric fibers added with inorganic fillers

An analysis method has been proposed to estimate the wear rates of fibers from the results of wear tests carried out by contacting the fiber with a rotating drum covered with abrasive paper. With this method, the influences of heat treatment, drawing and addition of aluminum borate whiskers and carbon nanotubes with cup-stuck structure on the wear resistance of polyamide 6 and poly(ethylene terephthalate) fibers have been investigated. It has been shown that the drawing of these fibers causes detrimental effects of reducing wear resistance although it improves tensile properties, but that the addition of fillers effectively improves wear resistance without loosing tensile modulus and strength.