• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.382-388
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• 2019

It is currently well known that surface textures act as lubricant reservoirs, entrap wear debris, and hydrodynamic bearings, which can lead to certain increases in load-carrying capacities. Until recently, the vast majority of research has focused on parallel sliding machine components such as thrust bearings, mechanical face seals, piston rings, etc. However, most sliding bearings have a convergent film shape in the sliding direction and their hydrodynamic pressure is mainly generated by the wedge action. Following the first part of the present study that investigates the effect of groove position on the lubrication performances of inclined slider bearings, this paper focuses on the effects of groove depths and film thicknesses. Using a commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code, FLUENT, the continuity and Navier-Stokes equations are numerically analyzed. The results show that the film thickness and groove depth have a significant influence on the pressure distribution. The maximum pressure occurs at the groove depth where the vortex is found and, as the depth increases, the pressure decreases. There is also a groove depth to maximize the supporting load with the film thickness. The friction force acting on the slider decreases with deeper grooves. Therefore, properly designed groove depths, depending on the operating conditions, can improve the load-carrying capacity of inclined slider bearings as compared to the bearings without a groove.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.303-310
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• 2014

In order to reduce friction and improve reliability, researchers have applied various surface texturing methods to highly sliding machine elements such as mechanical seals and piston rings. Despite extensive theoretical research on surface texturing, previous numerical results are only applicable to isothermal and iso-viscous conditions. Because the lubricant flow pattern of textured bearing surfaces is much more complicated than that for non-textured bearings, the Navier?Stokes equation is more suitable than the Reynolds equation for the former. This study carries out a thermohydrodynamic (THD) lubrication analysis to investigate the lubrication characteristics of a single micro-dimpled parallel thrust bearing cell. The analysis involves using the continuity, Navier?Stokes, energy, temperature?viscosity relation, and heat conduction equations with the commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code FLUENT. This study discretizes these equations using the finite volume method and solves them using the SIMPLE algorithm. The results include finding the streamlines, pressure and temperature distributions, and variations in the friction force and leakage for various dimple radii and depths. Increasing the dimple radius and decreasing the depth causes a recirculation flow to form because of a strong vortex, and the oil temperature greatly increases compared with the non-textured case. The present numerical scheme and results are applicable to THD analysis of various surface-textured sliding bearings and can lead to further study.