Investigation of wear on the upper edges of webs of thin-film coated single-screw extruders processing pure polymers

Abstract

Abstract During polymer extrusion there are a variety of situations in which the screwthread of the extrusion screw has an unlubricated metal-to-metal contact with the barrel wall. At the same time the screw coating is subjected to the highest loads. The combination of a secondary hardening cold work steel 1.2379 and a chromium nitride coating deposited by ARC-PVD, which is frequently used in polymer processing, is characterized and investigated. The characterization is done by metallographic examination, SEM and CLSM. The tests were performed on a pin-on-disk and a pin-roll test rig. Different roughness levels were tested on the pin-on-disk test, where massive differences in wear behavior were found. A hybrid surface structure is proposed to optimize the tribosystem. On the pin-on-disk test stand, rollers made of the same material pairing were tested. The test speed was varied to highlight differences and similarities between the tribological systems. A wear minimization of 50 % was achieved and the similarities between the tribological systems were highlighted. In addition, the investigations led to the development of a new model thesis which provides a reason for the development of stippling on the screw when processing polycarbonate.