Wettability and Friction Property of Rubber Sheet Transferred from Porous Plating with Microstructural Surface

Abstract

In this study, the plate that was deposited porous nickel plating film was used as the mold, and its surface morphology was transferred to rubber surface. Then the effect of surface morphology of rubber on wettability and friction property were investigated. The surface of transferred rubber sheet had countless conical shape protrusions, and the rubber sheet with different diameter and height of protrusions was fabricated by controlling the porous nickel film structure. The rubber materials used for evaluation were silicone rubber, natural rubber, ethylene propylene diene monomer rubber and fluoro rubber, and the wettability and the friction property were evaluated. As a result, it was found that the water repellency of the rubber sheet with the protrusions is increased compared with the rubber sheet without the protrusions. In addition, the water repellency increased with increasing the ratio of protrusion height to diameter. On the other hand, the friction coefficient showed different behavior depending on the counter material.