The effect of surface texturing in soft elasto-hydrodynamic lubrication

A theoretical model is developed to study the potential use of laser surface texturing (LST) in the form of spherical micro-dimples for soft elasto-hydrodynamic lubrication (SEHL). The model consists of mutual smooth elastomeric and LST rigid surfaces moving relatively to each other in the presence of viscous lubricant. The pressure distribution in the fluid film and the elastic deformations of the elastomer are obtained from a simultaneous solution of the Reynolds equation and the equation of elasticity for the elastomer. An extensive parametric investigation is performed to identify the main important parameters of the problem, which are the aspect ratio and area density of the dimples. The parametric analysis provides optimum parameters of the surface texturing and shows that LST effectively increases load capacity and reduces friction in SEHL.