Prediction of wear of short glass fiber reinforced polyamide 66 composite sprocket

The wear of a polymer composite sprocket primarily depends on contact pressure and sliding velocity that vary significantly during service. The sliding distance and contact pressure at the sprocket/roller interface were estimated for a pristine polymer composite sprocket engaged with a standard and a 3% extended steel chain by employing the explicit finite element method. A set of experiments was executed to find the friction and wear coefficients of sprocket material using polyamide 66 composite pins and standard steel disc at sliding speeds of 1, 2, and 3 m/s and normal loads of 10, 20, 30, and 40 N. The wear depth is estimated after getting friction and wear coefficients experimentally, and contact pressure and sliding distance numerically. Archard wear model was executed using the UMESHMOTION subroutine with the Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian technique in ABAQUS. The peak contact pressure on the sprocket is increased approximately by 1.5 times as the chain elongates from 0% to 3%. A pristine sprocket engaging a 3% extended chain after one lakh cycles experienced an approximate wear depth of 90 µm.