The Effect of Elastomer Surface Texturing in Soft Elasto-Hydrodynamic Lubrication

Abstract

The present study focuses on modeling the effect of elastomer surface texturing in soft elasto-hydrodynamic lubrication. The model consists of an elastomer with spherical microdimples sliding at a constant velocity relative to a rigid and smooth counterpart in the presence of viscous lubricant. The hydrodynamic lubrication and the elasticity problems are solved simultaneously for the cases of full and partial texturing of the elastomer surface. Load carrying capacity and friction force are evaluated by integration of the pressure and shear stress fields in the viscous lubricant, respectively. A parametric analysis is performed to obtain the optimum surface texturing parameters for maximum load and minimum friction.

Looking into a laser textured piston ring-liner contact

“…This approach can be applied to a wide range of materials including metals [16], polymers [17], ceramics [18]. However, due to the limitations related to production times and manufacturing costs, other innovative production methods are being explored -these, along with their advantages over LST, have recently been reviewed by Costa and Hutchings [19].…”

Modeling of surface texturing in hydrodynamic lubrication

“…is relatively new [23,24]. Hence, differently from the previous applications, no experimental evidence has yet been accumulated to validate these models.…”

“…The basic modeling described above for mechanical seals can be easily modified to fit different applications. These modifications include, for example, solving a non-linear Reynolds equation for compressible fluids [11], solving the Reynolds equation simultaneously with a dynamic equation for piston rings [14] or with the equation of elasticity for elastomeric seals and bearings [23,24]. In the following few of these modifications are presented in more details.…”

“…The preferred and most efficient way to optimize surface texturing is by parametric analysis in a theoretical model. This was done in several models for bearings [18,29], various seals [8,11,13,23,24,31], piston rings [14,26] and magnetic recording tapes [32] to obtain maximum load capacity, minimum friction, maximum film stiffness and minimum leakage. Many experimental studies attempting optimization by trial and error approach can also be found in the literature (see Ref.…”

“…(31) relate the dimensionless local shear and normal stresses, respectively, to the dimensionless elastic displacements (see Ref. [23]) at the inner surface of the elastomer sleeve. These shear and normal stresses are equal to the Couette viscous shear and the hydrodynamic pressures in the fluid, respectively.…”