Friction evaluation of lubricated laser-textured surfaces

Despite a large amount of work dedicated to the study of the effects of textured surfaces in tribological pairs, there is still a need for accurate and convincing experimental results to prove the benefic effects predicted theoretically. This paper presents an original experimental set-up with a partially textured flat pin sliding on a rotating disc in the presence of a thin lubricating film of constant thickness. The texture was composed of a series of parallel grooves cut on the half of the pin front face. The main objective of the reported work was the experimental assessment of hydrodynamic performances (load capacity and friction force) for parallel, partially textured sliders and the comparison with a similar step slider. Preliminary results have clearly put in evidence the collective hydrodynamic effect of partially textured surfaces. The stepped configuration has shown greater load capacity with respect to textured configuration. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.