• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.376-381
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• 2019

Surface texturing is widely applied to reduce friction and improve the reliability of machine elements. Despite extensive theoretical studies to date, most research has been limited to parallel thrust bearings, mechanical face seals, piston rings, etc. However, most sliding bearings have a convergent film shape in the sliding direction and the hydrodynamic pressure is mainly generated by the wedge action. The results of surface texturing on inclined slider bearings are largely insufficient. This paper is the first part of a recent study focusing on the effect of the groove position on the lubrication performances of inclined slider bearings. We model a slider bearing with one rectangular groove on a fixed pad and analyze the continuity and Navier-Stokes equations using a commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code, FLUENT. The results show that the film convergence ratio and the groove position have a significant influence on the pressure and velocity distributions. There are groove positions to maximize the supporting load with the film convergence ratio and the groove reduces the frictional force acting on the slider. Therefore, the proper groove position not only improves the load-carrying capacity of the slider bearings but also reduces its frictional loss. The present results apply to various surface-textured sliding bearings and can lead to further studies.