Tribological performance of a surface textured meso scale air bearing

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study is to improve the tribological performance of meso scale air journal bearing by adopting texture on the bearing surface. Design/methodology/approach The present study is based on numerical analysis. The detailed numerical investigation is carried out using a fluid flow based thin-film model in COMSOL 5.2 software. Findings The influence of texture design parameters: geometry (shape, orientation and slender ratio), and position on the tribological performance of meso scale air journal bearing is investigated. It is found that texture shape has a strong influence on the tribological characteristics such as load capacity and friction coefficient of the bearing. Slender texture improves the load capacity, but it has a negligible effect on the reduction of friction coefficient. In contrast, texture orientation is found to be insignificant for both increasing load capacity and decreasing friction coefficient. Furthermore, the maximum improvement in load capacity is obtained for partially textured bearing, but the minimum friction coefficient is achieved for full texturing. Originality/value The present study investigates the influence of texture design parameters viz geometry (shape, orientation and slender ratio), and position on the tribological performance of meso scale air journal bearing.