Optimising the design of textured surfaces for reducing lubricated friction coefficient

Abstract

Under operating conditions which are unfavourable for lubrication, such as high load and low velocity, the use of textured surfaces significantly promotes the formation of a thick lubricant film and an improvement of the friction coefficient. This paper relates to the manufacture of textures using a photolithography and chemical etching process. Different surface geometries, texturing densities and depths were designed to analyse the influence of these parameters. The friction coefficient was measured in a ball-on-disc tribometer under different lubrication regimes, and the results have been used to develop an artificial neural network with texturing optimisation potential. © 2016 The Authors Lubrication Science published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.