Surface roughness effects on point contact elastohydrodynamic lubrication in linear rolling guide with fractal surface topographies
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to study the effects of surface roughness on the lubrication performances of the linear rolling guide, which provides theoretical guidance for its lubrication design.
Design/methodology/approach
The two-variable Weierstrass–Mandelbrot function is used to represent the random and multi-scale characteristics of the rough surface topography. The elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) model of contact between the steel ball and raceway is built. The full numerical solutions of the pressure and film thickness are obtained by using the multi-grid technique.
Findings
The presence of surface roughness can cause the random fluctuations of the pressure and film thickness, and the fluctuations can become more dramatic for the rougher surfaces. It is also found that the film characteristics can be influenced significantly by the working conditions, such as the load, velocity and ambient viscosity of lubricants.
Originality/value
Characterization of surface topographies regarding EHL problems in the past studies cannot reflect random and multi-scale characteristics. In this paper, the fractal-based method is introduced to analysis of the point-contact micro-EHL. It reveals the mechanism and law of contact lubrication influenced by the fractal surface roughness and enriches the lubrication principle and method of the linear rolling guide.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by National Science and Technology Major Project of China, under Grant no. 2013ZX04008-031.
Citation
Li, L. and Yang, J. (2018), "Surface roughness effects on point contact elastohydrodynamic lubrication in linear rolling guide with fractal surface topographies", Industrial Lubrication and Tribology, Vol. 70 No. 4, pp. 589-598. https://doi.org/10.1108/ILT-04-2017-0092
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited