Wear performance of neat and vitamin E blended highly cross-linked PE under severe conditions: The combined effect of accelerated ageing and third body particles during wear test

FTIR crystallinity profiles, bulk DSC crystallinity and surface micro-Raman crystallinity seemed to have a similar behaviour upon testing: all of them (as well as the all-trans and ortho-trans contents) revealed the most significant changes in XLPE and XLPE_VE samples. The more severe third-body wear testing conditions determined more noticeable changes in all spectroscopic markers with respect to previous tests. Unexpectedly, traces of bulk oxidation were found in both STD_PE (unirradiated) and XLPE (remelting-stabilized), which were expected to be stable to oxidation; on the contrary, XLPE_VE demonstrated a high oxidative stability in the present, highly demanding conditions.