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Numerical and Experimental Study of a Sector-Shaped Surface Texture in Friction Reduction

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Abstract

Reducing friction using lubricant is of great significance to reducing energy consumption and extending the life of machinery. Surface texturing is effective to enhance the lubrication condition, and it is crucial to properly design the texture’s morphology. In this study, a sector-shaped surface texture is designed and demonstrated using both numerical and experimental methods. A computational fluid dynamic method based on Navier–Stokes equations and a two-phase cavitation model is performed to evaluate the effect of the texture in the hydrodynamic lift and to optimize the geometrical parameters of the texture. The mechanism associated with the additional hydrodynamic pressure generation is also revealed according to the results of the simulation. Then, pin-on-disk rotary friction experiments are performed on steel disks textured by a femtosecond laser to verify the lubricant effect of the proposed texture. The results of the experiment suggest that the sector-shaped textures reduce friction more than conventional circle-shaped textures, which coincides well with the results of the simulation.

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Data availability

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.

Abbreviations

\(B\) :

Width of the flow domain

\(d\) :

Distance from the cut lines to the center of the circle

\(d{\prime}\) :

Distance from the intersection of the cut lines to the center of the circle

\({\text{F}}_{\text{vap}}\) :

Evaporation coefficient

\({\text{F}}_{\text{cond}}\) :

Condensation coefficient

\(h\) :

Minimum thickness of the liquid film

\(H\) :

Depth of the texture

\(L\) :

Length of the flow domain

\({L}_{c}\) :

Length of the chevron texture

\(p\) :

Pressure in the lubricant

\({\text{p}}_{v}\) :

Saturated liquid pressure of the lubricant

\(R\) :

Radius of the circle that generates the texture

\({R}_{B}\) :

Bubble radius

\({R}_{e},{R}_{c}\) :

Mass transfer source terms connected to the growth and collapse of the vapor bubbles repectively

\({S}_{P}\) :

Texture area ratio

\({\varvec{u}}\) :

Sliding velocity

\({{\varvec{v}}}_{{\varvec{v}}}\) :

Vapor phase velocity

\({W}_{l}\) :

Width of the chevron texture

\({a}_{nuc}\) :

Nucleation site volume fraction

\({a}_{v}\) :

Vapor volume fraction

\(\theta\) :

An angular geometry parameter of the texture

\(\mu\) :

Dynamic viscosity of the lubricant

\(\rho\) :

Density of the fluid

\({\rho }_{v}\) :

Vapor density

\({\rho }_{\text{l}}\) :

Lubricant density

\({\text{CFD}}\) :

Computational fluid dynamics

\({\text{CoF}}\) :

Coefficient of friction

\({\text{DI}}\) :

Dimensionless

\({\text{FVM}}\) :

Finite volume method

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Funding

This research was funded by Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities: D5000210850, Natural Science Basic Research Program of Shaanxi Province: 2022JQ-429, and Weinan WoodKing Intelligent Technology Co. Ltd & Northwestern Polytechnical University Joint Research Funding: D520422034.

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Author notes

  1. Yuan Wei and Haoming Yan contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Frontiers Science Center for Flexible Electronics (FSCFE) and Institute of Flexible Electronics (IFE), Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, 710072, China

    Yuan Wei, Haoming Yan, Shuang Li & Xuewen Wang

Authors
  1. Yuan Wei
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  2. Haoming Yan
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  3. Shuang Li
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  4. Xuewen Wang
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Contributions

YW, SL and HY performed the simulations, experiments and the data analysis. XW conceptualized the work, and supervised the experiments and their analysis. YW and HY wrote and revised the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yuan Wei or Xuewen Wang.

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Wei, Y., Yan, H., Li, S. et al. Numerical and Experimental Study of a Sector-Shaped Surface Texture in Friction Reduction. Tribol Lett 72, 60 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11249-024-01863-3

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