Fretting Wear Behavior of Sealing Rubber Cylinder Against Pipeline Steel for Subsea Pipeline Packer

Abstract The subsea pipeline packer can quickly plug the damaged pipeline, and the sealing rubber cylinder is the packer's core. This study investigates the fretting wear behavior between the pipeline and the cylinder, which influences the sealing performance. The fretting wear tests and the surface wear morphology of nitrile rubber (NBR) and fluororubber (FKM) are conducted. The curves of friction force, the running condition fretting maps, and the friction coefficient are obtained. The fretting behavior and mechanisms with displacement amplitude (D) and normal force (Fn) are discussed. The results indicate that the fretting wear shows different operating states under different conditions. Compared to FKM, NBR transitions more easily from the mixed slip region to the fully sliding region. FKM demonstrates better resistance to fretting wear under oil lubrication.