Tribological Analysis of Contacts Between Glass and Tungsten Carbide Near the Glass Transition Temperature

In recent years, the tribological contact between hard solids and glass at high temperatures has been identified as a crucial aspect in emerging technical applications like e.g., precision glass molding. To optimize such tribological systems, especially, the internal transformations of the glasses need to be considered, since these can determine which kind of energy dissipation channels become relevant, when the temperature of a glass is increasing and approaching the glass transition temperature. Here, we now introduce a new tribometer specifically developed for the analysis of glasses at elevated temperatures. Using this tribometer, we characterize friction of contacts between tungsten carbide (WC) and soda lime glass as a function of temperature, while additionally PMMA was analyzed for comparison. Our experiments reveal different tribological regimes where either simple sliding, surface fracturing, or surface deformation can be identified as relevant interface processes for the tribological behavior.