• 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.35 no.6
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• pp.389-395
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• 2019

In various industries, thin film coatings are used to improve friction and wear characteristics. Various types of tribotesters are used to evaluate the friction and wear characteristics of such thin film coatings. In this study, we fabricated a micro-tribotester and Tribo-scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to compare the friction and wear characteristics of copper (Cu) coatings under an atmospheric pressure and a vacuum condition, respectively. The reliability of the different types of tribotesters was evaluated by performing calibrations for the sensor to measure the friction forces and normal loads. Using the two different types of devices, the friction and wear tests are conducted at the same experimental conditions excluding environment conditions such as the atmospheric pressure and vacuum condition. The friction coefficient at the vacuum condition is lower than at the atmospheric pressure. This difference in friction characteristics is due to the fact that wear phenomena occur differently according to the atmospheric pressure and vacuum condition. At the atmospheric pressure, the abrasive wear is the main wear mechanism. At the vacuum condition, the adhesive wear is the main wear mechanism. The reason for the difference in the wear mechanism of the Cu coating at the atmospheric pressure and the vacuum condition is that the oxidation phenomenon, which does not appear at the vacuum condition, occurs at the atmospheric pressure; therefore, the characteristics of the Cu coating change accordingly.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.136-141
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• 2012

In this paper, we investigated the friction characteristics of $W100^{\circ}{\o}L25m$ ellipse type surface pattern, on bearing steel. These characteristics are researched by utilizing a pin-on-disk wear test machine, under various velocities and other conditions. The reduction of friction is a necessary requirement for the improved efficiency of industrial parts. As the speed increases, there is a decrease in the effect of the dimple of friction characteristic in low velocity, with substantially little change to density. Conversely, as the load increases, the test direction of ellipse type dimple pattern, resulting in a difference in the texture of these two components. At a dimple density of 7.5% the friction characteristic is easily demonstrated, with a consistent change in both speed and load.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.139-145
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• 2014

Nowadays, most micro-patterns are manufactured during flow line production. However, a conventional rotary chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) system has a limited throughput for the fabrication of large and flexible electronics. To overcome this problem, we propose a novel linear roll-CMP system for the planarization of large-area electronics. In this paper, we present a statistical analysis on the linear roll-CMP process of copper-clad laminate (CCL) to determine the impacts of process parameters on the material removal rate (MRR) and its non-uniformity (NU). In the linear roll-CMP process, process parameters such as the slurry flow rate, roll speed, table feed rate, and down force affect the MRR and NU. To determine the polishing characteristics of roll-CMP, we use Taguchi's orthogonal array L16 (44) for the experimental design and F-values obtained by the analysis of variance (ANOVA). We investigate the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio to identify the prominent control parameters. The "higher is better" for the MRR and "lower is better" for the NU were selected for obtaining optimum CMP performance characteristics. The experimental and statistical results indicate that the down force and roll speed mainly affect the MRR and the down force and table feed rate determine the NU in the linear roll-CMP process. However, over 186.3 N of down force deteriorates the NU because of the bending of substrate. Roll speed has little relationship to the NU and the table feed rate does not impact on the MRR. This study provides information on the design parameter of roll-CMP machine and process optimization.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.125-131
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• 2018

A precision tribometer consisting of a cantilever was designed to measure frictional forces in the micro-Newton range. As frictional forces are measured based on the bending of the cantilever, vibration of the cantilever is the most significant factor affecting the quality of the friction measurement. Therefore, improved design of the tribometer with double cantilevers and a connecting plate that united the two cantilevers mechanically was suggested. For the verification of the modified design of the tribometer, numerical analysis and experiments were conducted. Examination using the finite element method revealed that the tribometer with a double cantilever and a connecting plate exhibited faster damping characteristics than the tribometer with a single cantilever. In the experiment, effectiveness of the double cantilever and connecting plate for vibration reduction was also confirmed. Vibration of the tribometer with double cantilever decreased eight times faster than that of the tribometer with a single cantilever. The faster damping of the double cantilever design is attributed to the mechanical interaction at the contacting surfaces between the cantilever and the connecting plate. Tribotesting using the tribometer with a single cantilever resulted in random fluctuation of frictional forces due to the stick-slip behavior. However, using the tribometer with a double cantilever and connecting plate for the tribotest gave relatively uniform and steady measurement of frictional forces. Increased stiffness owing to using a double cantilever and mechanical damping of the connecting plate were responsible for the stable friction signal.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.13-18
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• 2013

Slider bearing is a widely used load-carrying element in the industry. While a large number of studies have investigated the effect of overall surface curvature, very few have considered sinusoidal surface. Recently, consideration of surface roughness/waviness or intentional wave design has been identified as an important issue in the manufacture of hard disk driver, mechanical seal, hydraulic machine, and etc. This study investigated the load-carrying capacity of a finite-width slider bearing with a wavy surface. Film thickness ratios, length-width ratio, ambient pressure, amplitude, and partial distribution were selected as the simulation parameters. The calculation results showed that the load-carrying capacity rapidly varied at small film thickness ratio, but the waviness near the area of minimum film thickness made much more influence with an increase in film thickness ratio. As the length-width ratio of bearing was increased, ambient pressure became more influential at small film thickness ratios. Furthermore a particular partial distribution of the wavy area led to higher load-carrying capacity than did the whole distribution. Consequently, the results of this study are expected to be of use in surface micro-machining of finite-width slider bearings.

• 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.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.160-165
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• 2016

AISI 4140 steel is widely used in various mechanical components owing to its superior mechanical properties. Surface hardening techniques are often used to further improve the properties, particularly for applications with moving components. The aim of this research is to understand the effect of heat treatment process on surface properties and tribological characteristics of AISI 4140 steel. In this work, we prepare two different AISI 4140 steel specimens- one cooled by air and one by oil- and determine surface properties such as surface topography and roughness using a confocal microscope. We also observe the cross-sections of the specimens using a scanning electron microscope to understand the difference in the material structure. In addition, we assess the hardness with respect to the distance from the surface using a micro-Vickers hardness tester. After characterizing the surfaces of the specimens, we investigate the wear characteristics of the specimens under hydrodynamic lubrication. The results show the presence of grooves on the surface of the oil-cooled specimens. It is likely that such grooves are formed during the cooling process using the oil. However, we observe no other significant differences in the surface properties of the specimens. The wear test results show the occurrence of severe wear on the oil-cooled specimens, which may be due to the groove formed on the surface. The results of this work may be helpful to improve surface properties using surface hardening techniques from a tribological perspective.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.217-225
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• 2018

In this study, we spray a Ni-Cr composite powder onto AISI 4340 steel using the high velocity oxygen fuel method. We subsequently subject the Ni-Cr coating (as-sprayed) to ultrasonic nanocrystal surface modification (UNSM) process to improve the tribological performance. This study aims at increasing the wear resistance and durability of the Ni-Cr coating by altering the surface integrity and microstructure via the UNSM process. The UNSM process reduces the surface roughness of the as-sprayed coating by about 64%, which is explained by observing the elimination of high peaks and valleys and filling up micro-pores. Furthermore, a change in the microstructure of the coating due to continuous high-frequency strikes to the surface by a tip can lead to an increase in hardness from about 48 to 60 HRC. Furthermore, we investigate the characterization of the friction and wear behavior of Ni-Cr coating by a ball-on-disc tribometer in the dry conditions. We determine that after the UNSM process, there is a significant reduction in the friction coefficient of the as-sprayed coating from approximately 1.1 to 0.75. This is owing to the increased hardness and smoothed surface roughness. In addition, we investigate the surface morphology and wear track of the coatings before and after the UNSM process using a scanning electron microscope, energy dispersive spectrometer, and three-dimensional laser scanning microscope. We observe that the wear track of the Ni-Cr coating after the UNSM process is lower than that of the as-sprayed one. Thus, we confirm that the UNSM process has a significant influence on the improvement of the tribological performance of the Ni-Cr composite coating.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.247-253
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• 2018

Temperature rise due to viscous shear of the lubricating oil generates hydrodynamic pressure, even if the lubricating surfaces are parallel. This effect, known as the thermal wedge effect, varies significantly with film-temperature boundary conditions. The bearing conducts a part of the heat generated; hence, the oil temperature varies with the thermal conductivity of the bearing. In this study, we analyze the effect of thermal conductivity on the thermohydrodynamic (THD) lubrication of parallel slider bearings. We numerically analyze the continuity equation, Navier-Stokes equation, energy equation including the temperature-viscosity and temperature-density relations for lubricants, and the heat conduction equation for bearing by creating a 2D model of the micro-bearing using the commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code FLUENT. We then compare the variation in temperature, viscosity, and pressure distributions with the thermal conductivity. The results demonstrate that the thermal conductivity has a significant influence on THD lubrication characteristics of parallel slider bearings. The lower the thermal conductivity, the greater the pressure generation due to the thermal wedge effect resulting in a higher load-carrying capacity and smaller frictional force. The present results can function as the basic data for optimum bearing design; however, the applicability requires further studies on various operating conditions.