Speed-Dependent Tribological Behavior of Polymer Guide-Shoe Materials for Elevators

The guide shoe, as a core guiding component of elevators, plays a crucial role in determining the safety, smoothness, and reliability of the elevator system.To quantitatively compare the speed-dependent tribological responses of candidate polymer guide-shoe materials, four representative polymers-polyurethane, natural rubber (NR), polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), and PA6 nylon-were investigated under controlled ball-on-disc sliding conditions against Q235 steel.The speed exponent n and speed wear factor Kv of each material were quantitatively characterized, clarifying the speed effects on the wear behavior of the four polymers.To complement the physicsbased wear analysis, a condition-level machine-learning framework was further evaluated for interpolating the late-stage coefficient of friction at withheld intermediate sliding speeds using prescribed velocity and physically motivated contact descriptors.The data-driven analysis is treated as a proof-of-concept for within-range interpolation rather than as a general predictive model for untested materials or service conditions.The results provide experimentally derived parameters and comparative data for laboratory screening of polymer guide-shoe materials with respect to sliding-speed sensitivity.The fitted speed exponents ranged from 0.4726 for PA6 nylon to 2.2790 for NR, while GPR achieved an R 2 of 0.97536 and an MAE of 0.02559 on the eight held-out material-speed conditions.