Flaking of PEEK under one-point rolling contact fatigue using Al2O3 ball

The growth of flaking as tribological fatigue failure in PEEK was investigated through the one-point type rolling contact fatigue test between a machined PEEK polymer shaft and an alumina bearing's ball. Due to Hertzian contact of cyclic compressive stress, the subsurface fatigue cracks in the PEEK shaft propagated in rolling and axial directions. When the rolling fatigue life of the PEEK shaft reached 106 fatigue cycles, many narrow angled cracks occurred in the near-surface of the rolling track without flaking. On the other hand, when the flaking ocuurred on the PEEK shaft before 106 fatigue cycles, semicircular surface and subsurface crack propagations were observed. From these observations, it was found that micro-flaking occurred due to the linkages between subsurface and surface cracks. Flakingdeveloped due to the accumulation of these micro-flakings.