Effect of modulation of interfacial properties on the tribological properties of viscoelastic epoxy resin damping coatings

The viscoelastic materials exhibit different tribological responses when compared to the stiff materials, due to the intermediate mechanical properties between viscous liquid and elastic solid. In this work, the effect of damping materials viscoelasticity on sliding friction under dry condition was investigated. However, it was difficult to change its damping properties only while other properties (strength or surface hardness) remain unchanged, since viscoelasticity was one of its intrinsic properties. Therefore, the attention of interactions between the material components was closely paid. To achieve this, the experimental groups of damping materials with various viscoelasticity were established by adding various fillers and adjusting their surface properties. Additionally, a viscoelastic property determined friction coefficient model was obtained and validated by the molecular dynamic method. The results show that the test model is in good agreement with the experimental results. Meanwhile, tribo-pairs with higher proportion of viscous character had greater oscillations in friction. They also exhibited higher friction coefficient due to the increased contribution of viscoelastic hysteresis losses to friction.