WHY

Various types of polymers can be used on steel cables, to provide a controlled-friction and noise-reducing coating when used on pulleys.  An efficient way to prescreen the behaviour of different types of polymers, in terms of frictional stability and durability, is needed.

HOW

Typical loading stresses in the application are estimated and recalculated to a cylinder-on-cylinder contact situation.  In this way, cylindrical test samples can be used.  The coated steel wire is used as one of the two parts of the friction test.  The countermaterial is a hard steel pin, representing steel pulleys that the coated wire is running over.

To simulate the most severe conditions in the pulley-cable contact, pure sliding is used in the lab test.  A reciprocating motion is selected, to allow testing on a short piece of coated cable  (for the prescreening stage, no long coils of coated material can be used).

The Basalt-N2 is used to rub a steel pin over the coated cables and compare the friction coefficient and relative durability of the coatings with one another

RESULTS 

• Direct comparison of frictional behaviour of different polymer coatings measured immediately on the coated cable : production influences are included in the test.
• Ranking of friction for different materials

• Ranking of durability of different materials