Comparative analysis of the effects of surface texture and boundary slip on the tribological properties of lubricated sliding contacts.

Recently, the usage of textured surfaces, as well as the slip boundary induced by hydrophobic coating for increasing the performance of tribopairs, has received a lot of attention. The purpose of this research is to investigate the differences in bearing characteristic performance between a step texture and a slip boundary. The two-dimensional slider bearing is employed in this study by adjusting the step or slip length. In this study, the simulations are conducted by solving the Navier-Stokes equation based on the finite volume method. The numerical result indicates that step bearing outperforms hydrophobic bearing in terms of load-bearing capacity irrespective of the step length ratio. However, for friction characteristics, the hydrophobic bearing is superior for all values of slip length ratio. Another interesting finding is that for each pattern, in terms of the load support, the optimal step or slip length ratio is highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]