This paper aims to provide data of friction and wear characteristics under water lubricated sliding conditions between polymer and stainless steel in order to help develop water lubrication systems. The tests were carried out using block on ring friction testing machine (FALEX LFW-1), so the results described in this paper are obtained under line contact and pure slip in one direction continuous sliding condition. The materials of block specimens are crystalline engineering plastics and they are PEEK(Poly Ether Ether Ketone), PPS(Poly Phenylene Sulfide), POM(Poly Oxy Methylene), PBT(Poly Butylene Terephthalate) and UHMWPE(Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene). The results show the material which had higher friction coefficient also had high specific wear rate. This tendency largely depends on the hardness and the heat resistant temperature. A soft material such as UHMWPE had low friction coefficient and specific wear rate, but it was confirmed that the surface is roughened, which is remarkable when tested at a temperature close to the heat resistant temperature.

The tribological properties, such as static friction, of compliant elastic materials have proven important for industrial applications, including seals, windshield wipers, robot hands, grips on tools, and sports equipment. Deformable surfaces with designed microstructures may provide characteristic tribological properties based on their complex contact states. Here the static friction is investigated, over a wide range of normal loads, between a flat glass surface and textile-embedded elastomer surfaces that show hierarchical microstructures. The microstructures comprise small protrusions on each textile fiber and surface-buckling-based wrinkles with periodicities on the order of tens and hundreds of microns, respectively. The static friction becomes increasingly higher with increases in the normal loads applied to the structure surfaces. Observations of the contact areas reveal that the contact states nonlinearly change with changing normal loads. In addition, the wavy shapes are flattened at high loads. This unique, load-dependent static friction, associated with the transition from partial to almost full contact, depends on both the normal loads and the aspect ratio of the wrinkles. By tuning the structure of wrinkles, it is possible to extend the monotonic load-dependency of friction into the highly nonlinear range, which may augment the tribological performance of elastomeric materials.