Frictional behaviors of rough soft contact on wet and dry pipeline surfaces: With application to deepwater pipelaying

Elastic rubbers are widely used in nature and engineering. In order to better understand soft rough contact under dry and wet conditions during deepwater pipelaying process, various polyurethane (PU) discs both in PU-pipe and PU-steel sliding combinations have been investigated by using self-developed tribometer. The tribological test results show that the friction coefficient can be clearly seen: PU90 < PU80 < PU70, under dry conditions. Experimental results also indicate that the two dramatic increases of the frictional coefficient exist in the rough soft PU-pipe contact. The potential influence of asperities and thin liquid film is discussed.