Abstract
This research article is a numerical simulation study and experimental verification of the frictional behaviors of grease lubricated sliding contact under mixed lubrication conditions. The influences of surface texture parameters on the frictional properties were investigated. A numerical simulation model was specifically developed in MatLab which employs the average flow Reynolds equation established on the basis of finite-element analysis to compute the friction coefficient, pressure distribution, and film thickness. The results showed that friction coefficient is largely dependent on texture parameters with higher and lower dimple depths resulting in higher friction coefficient at a fixed dimple density. The sample with texture density of \(T_{\text{d}} = 15\%\) and texture depth of \(H_{3} = 7\) μm exhibited the best friction properties experimentally, because it can store more grease and trap wear debris. Through the comparison of the simulated results of the current model with the ring-on-disc experimental results, the validity of the mixed lubrication model was confirmed. However, the lowest friction coefficient occurs at dimple depth of 5 μm and texture density of 10% which is slightly at variance with the experimental results. The simulated results exhibit the reduction of friction for surface texturing and the main mechanism for such an effect may be attributed to the hydrodynamic pressure effect of the surface texturing, which increases the mating gap and reduces probability of asperity contact.
Similar content being viewed by others
Abbreviations
- \(p\) :
-
Film pressure (Pa)
- \(\tau_{\text{s}}\) :
-
Yield shear stress (Pa)
- \(\eta_{\text{s}}\) :
-
Dynamic viscosity (Pa s)
- \(h_{\text{p}}\) :
-
No shear flow thickness (μm)
- \(h_{\text{d}}\) :
-
Dimple depth (μm)
- \(u_{\text{sf}}\), \(v_{\text{sf}}\) :
-
Shear flow velocity (m/s)
- \(u_{\text{nsf}}\),\(v_{\text{nsf}}\) :
-
No shear flow velocity (m/s)
- \(t\) :
-
Time (s)
- \(R_{1}\) :
-
Inner radius of ring (mm)
- \(r\) :
-
Radius of dimple (μm)
- \(x\), \(y\), \(z\) :
-
Coordinates (m)
- \(W\) :
-
Average load per unit area (Pa)
- \(\mu\) :
-
Coefficient of friction
- \(\tau\) :
-
Shear stress (Pa)
- \(\phi\) :
-
Plastic viscosity (Pa s)
- \(n\) :
-
Flow coefficient
- \(h\) :
-
Overall film thickness (μm)
- \(h_{\text{o}}\) :
-
Minimum film thickness (μm)
- \(\bar{U}\), \(\bar{V}\) :
-
Slider velocity (m/s)
- \(q_{x}\), \(q_{y}\) :
-
Volume flow rate (m3/s)
- \(T_{\text{d}}\) :
-
Texture density (%)
- \(R_{2}\) :
-
Outer radius of ring (mm)
- \(D\) :
-
Dimple diameter (μm)
- \(L\) :
-
Period of the unit cell (μm)
- \(\tau_{\text{avg}}\) :
-
Average shear stress (Pa)
References
Etsion I, Burstein L (1996) A model for mechanical seals with regular microsurface structure. Tribol Trans 39:677–683
Etsion I, Halperin G, Greenberg Y (1997) Increasing mechanical seals life with laser-textured seal faces. In: BHR group conference series publication, Mechanical Engineering Publications Limited, pp 3–12
Herschel W, Bulkley R (1926) Measurement of consistency as applied to rubber-benzene solutions. In: Am Soc Test Proc, vol 2, pp 621–633
Hua X et al (2017) Experimental analysis of friction and wear of laser microtextured surface filled with composite solid lubricant and lubricated with grease on sliding surfaces. J Tribol 139(2):021609
Jacobson S, Kälvesten E, Pettersson U (2005) Effect of surface textures in highly loaded grease lubricated reciprocating sliding contacts, pp 313–314. https://doi.org/10.1115/wtc2005-63222
Jonkisz W, Krzeminski-Freda H (1982) The properties of elastohydrodynamic grease films. Wear 77:277–285
Jonkisz W, Krzemiński-Freda H (1979) Pressure distribution and shape of an elastohydro-dynamic grease film. Wear 55:81–89
Kauzlarich JJ, Greenwood J (1972) Elastohydrodynamic lubrication with Herschel–Bulkley model greases. ASLE Trans 15:269–277
Mourier L, Mazuyer D, Lubrecht A, Donnet C (2006) Transient increase of film thickness in micro-textured EHL contacts. Tribol Int 39:1745–1756
Segu DZ, Choi SG, hyouk Choi J, Kim SS (2013) The effect of multi-scale laser textured surface on lubrication regime. Appl Surf Sci 270:58–63
Shen C, Khonsari M (2013) Effect of dimple’s internal structure on hydrodynamic lubrication. Tribol Lett 52:415–430
Shum P, Zhou Z, Li K (2013) Investigation of the tribological properties of the different textured DLC coatings under reciprocating lubricated conditions. Tribol Int 65:259–264
Siripuram RB, Stephens LS (2004) Effect of deterministic asperity geometry on hydrodynamic lubrication. Trans Am Soc Mech Eng J Tribol 126:527–534
Tala-Ighil N, Fillon M, Maspeyrot P (2011) Effect of textured area on the performances of a hydrodynamic journal bearing. Tribol Int 44:211–219
Tang Z, Liu X, Liu K (2017) Effect of surface texture on the frictional properties of grease lubricated spherical plain bearings under reciprocating swing conditions. Proc Inst Mech Eng Part J J Eng Tribol 231:125–135
Tomanik E (2013) Modelling the hydrodynamic support of cylinder bore and piston rings with laser textured surfaces. Tribol Int 59:90–96
Venkatesan S, Stephens LS (2005) Surface textures for enhanced lubrication: fabrication and characterization techniques. University of Kentucky Libraries
Wen S, Huang P (2012) Principles of tribology. Wiley, Hoboken
Wen SZ, Ying TN (1988) A theoretical and experimental study of EHL lubricated with grease. J Tribol 110:38–43. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.3261572
Zhang H, Zhang D, Hua M, Dong G, Chin K (2014) A study on the tribological behavior of surface texturing on babbitt alloy under mixed or starved lubrication. Tribol Lett 56:305–315
Zhang C, Wang S, Zhang Y (2015) Pressure distribution analysis of elastohydrodynamic journal bearing under grease lubrication. In: International conference on fluid power and mechatronics (FPM), IEEE, pp 74–79
Acknowledgements
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51375211 and 51375213) and Primary Research & Development Plan of Jiangsu Province (BE2017122).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hua, X., Puoza, J.C., Zhang, P. et al. Numerical Simulation and Experimental Analysis of Grease Friction Properties on Textured Surface. Iran J Sci Technol Trans Mech Eng 43 (Suppl 1), 357–369 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40997-018-0162-0
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40997-018-0162-0