Improvement of Lubrication Performance by Micro Pit Surfaces

Abstract

This paper describes an investigation on improvement of lubrication performance by incorporating micropits on a surface with special focus on the arrangement of the micropits. Water lubricated experiments were conducted using a test rig in which parallel conformal sliding motion was produced between mechanical seal faces. Micropits were patterned on the stationary face ring by a Nd:YVO4 laser and two arrangements of the micropits were tested. It was found that the micropits of the same diameter, depth and area density provide different friction coefficient depending on their arrangement. The difference in friction coefficient between the two arrangements sometimes achieves greater than twice.

Keywords

• hydrodynamic lubrication
• mixed lubrication
• micropit
• arrangement
• friction
• cavitation
• mechanical face seal