CFD Modeling of the Effect of Different Surface Texturing Geometries on the Frictional Behavior

Abstract

In order to understand the effect of surface texturing parameters on the frictional behavior of textured surfaces and to correlate results of different lubrication regimes, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) numerical analysis of the fluid flow was performed for four different textured surface geometries. The aim of the present research paper is to get theoretical background for the frictional behavior of textured surfaces under hydrodynamic lubrication. Since it is unrealistic to make a direct analysis of a real problem that can possess more than several thousand micro-dimples, the purpose is then to investigate the flow in single cells of periodical micro-dimple patterns and to extract useful conclusions for the lubrication's framework. Among all geometries studied, optimum geometry shapes in terms of hydrodynamic performance were reported. It was found that the best hydrodynamic performance was achieved with the rectangular geometry (lowest shear force).

Computational fluid dynamic study on the tribological performance of dimple-textured surface fabricated using the turning process

“…Specifically, only the positive pressure was used in the calculation for equations ( 5) and ( 6), while the negative pressure area was considered as zero. Similar methods have been used in previous simulation studies (Checo et al, 2014;Vilhena et al, 2018).…”

“…The generation of this positive pressure is important, especially in hydrodynamic lubrication regime, as it helps increase the load capacity and acts as a separation force between the sliding surfaces (Ahmed et al, 2015). According to Vilhena et al (2018), the load carrying capacity was obtained by the average weighted area of the net pressure on the upper wall. Thus, to further clarify the influence of dimple-textured surface with increasing load capacity, pressure distribution on the mid plane of the upper wall was plotted along the sliding direction (y-axis) for both textured and untextured cases, as shown in Figure 5.…”

“…These findings indicate the benefits of introducing dimple on sliding surface, especially when inertia effect increases. Later, a similar study using a threedimensional simulation was also conducted with regard to circular dimple (Han et al, 2010), semi ellipsoidal dimple (Menon et al, 2015) and rectangular dimple (Vilhena et al, 2018). From these simulations, increasing dimensionless dimple width, dimple depth and Reynolds number were able to generate greater pressure build-up and load carrying capacity in hydrodynamic lubrication.…”

Multiphase Computational Fluid Dynamics Analysis of Hydrodynamic Journal Bearing Under the Combined Influence of Texture and Slip

“…In the present work, textured bearing with a rectangular dimple is of particular interest. The reason for using the rectangular-shaped dimple is that this shape is able to achieve the best performance compared to other shapes based on the work of Vilhena et al [12]. Additionally, in practice, it is easier to manufacture it.…”

“…With a single-phase lubrication analysis, a maximum reduction in drag of about 20% was achieved. Vilhena et al [12] studied the influence of texturing parameters on the performance of friction based on the CFD approach for different geometries of a textured surface. In terms of hydrodynamic performance, the optimum geometry shapes were discussed.…”