Frictional anisotropy under boundary lubrication: Effect of surface texture

The friction coefficient was measured under boundary lubrication with a ball-on-flat contact configuration in unidirectional sliding. The ball was smooth and hardened 52100 steel. Discs were made from case-carburized and hardened 4620, annealed 1080, and 1018 steels with directionally ground surfaces. A synthetic lubricant of stock polyalphaolefin was used for testing. During testing with each material, a frictional spike was observed whenever the ball slid parallel to the grinding ridge on the disc surface. The average friction coefficient for all tests was about 0.1, which is typical for the boundary lubrication regime. The magnitude of the frictional spikes, which reached as high as a friction coefficient of 0.25, and their persistence depended on the hardness of the disc surface. On the basis of elastohydrodynamic theory, coupled with the observation of severe plastic deformation on the ridges parallel to the sliding direction, the frictional spike could be due to localized plastic deformation on the disc surface at locations of minimal thickness for the lubricant fluid film. This hypothesis was further supported by lack of frictional spikes in tests using discs coated with a thin film of diamond-like carbon, in which plastic deformation is minimal.