An investigation of interfacial and bulk friction-induced dissipation in model epoxy-based composite materials reinforced with carbon fillers, as well as pure epoxy, is a challenge of this PhD thesis. While the interfacial dissipation depends mostly on surface properties of very thin material layer, the bulk dissipation involves high volume deformations. Firstly, an experimental friction investigation on carbon fibre- and carbon nanopearl-reinforcedepoxies of different filler volume friction under soft tribological conditions is carried out. In order to understand the results, a generalized frictional law for interfacial friction between two composites is proposed. It is based on Bowden and Tabor theory applied to multimaterial contact and requires a contact in-plane geometry parameter and local friction coefficients. Depending on applied assumption, effective shear stress or effective hardness for all composite phases, it results in direct or inverse proportionality frictional law. These analytical results complete and explain the experimentally obtained tendencies: the direct law should be applied to the composite/epoxy contact, while the inverse law is valid for the composite/composite contact. The second part of the experimental work deals with pure epoxy and carbon fibre-reinforced epoxy under severe tribological conditions. It aims to investigate bulk frictional dissipation and associated wear. A two-scale approach is established, which consists in calculation of macro parameters, such as wear rate, dissipated frictional energy, friction coefficient and relative contact temperature rise, and their coupling with damaged surface observations. This approach allows us to distinguish several wear modes, as two-body and three-body abrasion, adhesion, fatigue and thermal effects, and to associate their appearance and evolution to macro parameters. In contrast to pure epoxy, carbon fibre-reinforced epoxy tends to be more wear resistant.
