Fluid dynamics simulation on water lubricating performance of micro-/nano-textured surfaces considering roughness structures

Abstract

With the development of surface precision machining technology and extensive studies on lubrication and friction reduction, the use of surface texture to reduce friction has attracted widespread attention, but few studies have considered the influence of surface roughness on lubrication characteristics. By employing the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation method, the lubrication models with rectangular textures and the introduction of rough asperity structures at the same time are established. The effects of the corresponding structure parameters on the lubrication performance of textured and roughed surfaces are studied under water lubrication conditions. Our results suggest that the adjustment of geometric parameters on the micro-/nano-structured surfaces can influence the load-bearing capacity of the water lubrication film, thus affecting the hydrodynamic lubrication performance on the surface. In addition, the generation of vortex in the micro-textures can bring changes in vorticity, which causes energy dissipation and affects frictional forces. In the lubrication model with rectangular textures, optimal hydrodynamic lubrication performance is obtained under the appropriate depth ratio <i>H</i> = 0.6. Meanwhile, the corresponding lubrication performance can be enhanced by increasing the width ratio (<i>W</i>) of surface texture. After introducing random asperity structures on the micro-textured surface with a standard deviation <i>δ</i> = 0.5, the bearing capacity is increased by 44%, and the friction coefficient is reduced by 30.9%. Moreover, the introduction of half-sine rough asperity structures can only result in relatively minor differences in the lubrication performance, i.e. the changes of bearing capacity and friction coefficient are less than 10%. However, the introduction of compound hierarchical structure consisting of random asperity structures and half-sine rough asperity structures can result in an increase in the corresponding bearing capacity by 42% and a reduction in the friction coefficient by 31.1%, which implies a significant enhancement in the hydrodynamic lubrication performance.