Abstract
Laser surface texturing (LST) has been proven to improve the tribological performance of machine elements. The micro-scale patterns manufactured by LST may act as lubricant reservoirs, thus supplying oil when encountering insufficient lubrication. However, not many studies have investigated the use of LST in the boundary lubrication regime, likely due to concerns of higher contact stresses that can occur with the increasing surface roughness. This study aims to examine the influence of LST on the fatigue lifetime of thrust rolling bearings under boundary lubrication. A series of periodic patterns were produced on the thrust rolling bearings, using two geometrically different designs, namely cross and dimple patterns. Base oil ISO VG 100 mixed with 0.05 wt% P of zinc dialkyldithiophosphate (ZDDP) was supplied. The bearings with cross patterns reduce the wear loss by two orders of magnitude. The patterns not only retain lubricant in the textured pockets but also enhance the formation of an anti-wear tribofilm. The tribofilm generation may be improved by the higher contact stresses that occur when using the textured surface. Therefore, in contrast to the negative concerns, the ball bearings with cross patterns were instead found to increase the fatigue life by a factor of three.
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Acknowledgements
The present work is supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) in the priority program SPP 1551 “Resource efficient machine elements” (GA 1706/2-2, Ja1940/2-2). This work is also supported by the government of Lower Austria for the endowed professorship tribology at TU Vienna (No. WST3-F-5031370/001-2017). The authors also acknowledge the support by “Austrian COMET-Programme” (Project InTribology, No. 872176) under the scope of K2 XTribology and were developed in collaboration with the “Excellence Centre of Tribology” (AC2T research GmbH).
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Chia-Jui HSU. He is a tribologist doing research at Vienna University of Technology. He has a background in both mechanical engineering and material science. His current study is focusing on surface engineering, particularly on laser surface texturing and antiwear tribofilm. Moreover, microstructural and chemical characterization methods such as SEM, Raman, and nano-indentation are also his expertise.
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Hsu, CJ., Stratmann, A., Medina, S. et al. Does laser surface texturing really have a negative impact on the fatigue lifetime of mechanical components?. Friction 9, 1766–1775 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40544-021-0508-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40544-021-0508-2