An experimental study is presented to evaluate the influence of anisotropically shaped textures on the behaviour of sliding friction and sensitivity to sliding direction. The plate samples were textured with triangular sloped dimples using an ultrafast laser surface texturing technique. Reciprocating cylinder-on-plate tests were conducted with steel sliding pairs using mineral base oil as a lubricant to compare the tribological performance of reference non-textured specimen and dimpled samples. The dimples were designed with varying converging angles in the transverse y-z plane and top-view x-y plane. In this study, no dimple was fully covered in the contact area since the dimples size is much larger than the Hertzian line contact width. Stribeck style dynamic friction curves across boundary, mixed and hydrodynamic lubrication regimes were used to determine the benefit or antagonism of texturing. Observation of the directional friction effect of the anisotropic textures indicated that the converging shapes are beneficial for friction reduction, and the dimpled specimens have a lower friction coefficient particular under prevailing boundary lubrication conditions. It was also found that the real contact length variation rate is a major factor controlling the local friction response. The sloped bottoms of the textures produce effective converging wedge action to generate hydrodynamic pressure and contribute to the overall directional friction effects.
Surface textures have been of great interest within the tribology community with nearly 1500 papers published on this topic in the past two decades. With the pursuit of low emissions and environmental sustainability, the application of surface texturing to mechanical systems to lower friction and control wear is attracting increasing attention. There is no doubt that certain textured surfaces can have a beneficial effect on tribological performance but it is widely agreed that the optimization of textures should be carried out based on specific requirements of applications. The purpose of this review article is to summarize the current state of the art in surface texturing applied to mechanical applications (cutting tools, piston-ring & cylinder liners, sealing and journal bearings) from the following aspects: application requirements, numerical/experimental testing and validation, and tribological performance of textured surfaces (wear and friction), as well as the limitations in texture designs when applied to certain applications. Patterns/grooves in the micron-scale are the most typical shapes been studied, and benefits of partial texturing are applicable for most of these mechanical applications. Friction reduction of up to 34.5% in cutting tools, 82% in piston-ring & cylinder-liners, 65% in seals and 18% in journal bearings have been observed by experimental tests. Based on primary evidence from the literature, the last section provides general suggestions on current gaps in understanding and modelling and suggestions for future research directions.
This paper presents a study on the influence of anisotropically shaped texture arrays on friction behaviour of an oil lubricated sliding contact, especially on directional friction control based on the diverging and converging characteristics of the textures. Experiments have been conducted on a TE77 reciprocating cylinder-on-plate test rig, where steel rollers were used to slide against steel plate samples with or without textures. A mineral base oil was used to lubricate the contacts. Three geometries of dimples were designed and laser textured on the steel plate samples with varied 3-dimensional features, including Square Flat (SF), Square slope (SS) and Triangular Flat (TF) shapes representing the shape in x-y (top view) and x-z (side view) planes respectively. These shapes were chosen to vary the converging and diverging properties of the lubricated contacts depending on the sliding direction. Relatively large dimple sizes (side length ~ and depth ~ ) have been used in this study to enable observation of the effect and easy control of the texturing process. The texture density has been kept at as most literature suggested. The large dimple sizes resulted that the dimples were not be fully covered by the contact area, i.e. the dimple sides were bigger than the Hertzian contact width of the roller-flat contacts. This has eliminated the 'lift' or 'load bearing' effect discussed in most papers thus focuses on other effects investigated in this study. The results show that beneficial effects of the anisotropic textures present in all lubrication regimes including the boundary, mixed and hydrodynamic lubrications, especially under prevailing boundary lubrication conditions. Using high sampling rate for the friction data during the tests, it was able to study local friction effect due to individual dimple array especially at their leading and trailing edges. The results show that a local friction reduction is observed at the leading while an increase at the trailing edge. Overall directional friction effect of the anisotropic textures has been observed that the converging shape in both y-z plane and the x-y plane reduces friction. Furthermore, it was found that the triangular shape dimples have a greater local frictional response at each dimple array, while the sloped bottom square dimples have a more significant overall directional fricition effect.
Surface texturing has been shown to be an effective modification approach for improving tribological performance. This study examined the friction reduction effect generated by square dimples of different sizes and geometries. Dimples were fabricated on the surface of ASP2023 steel plates using femtosecond laser-assisted surface texturing techniques, and reciprocating sliding line contact tests were carried out on a Plint TE77 tribometer using a smooth 52100 bearing steel roller and textured ASP2023 steel plates. The tribological characterization of the friction properties indicated that the textured samples had significantly lowered the friction coefficient in both boundary (15% improvement) and mixed lubrication regimes (13% improvement). Moreover, the high data sampling rate results indicated that the dimples work as lubricant reservoirs in the boundary lubrication regime.
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