Tribological properties of dimple-textured titanium alloys under dry sliding contact

Textured dimples are fabricated on the Ti-6Al-4V alloy surfaces by an LD side-pumped solid-state laser. The friction and wear properties of the textured surfaces as well as the relationship between the tribological properties and the texture parameters are investigated by high-speed dry sliding tests. The results show that the dimple-textured titanium surfaces filled with molybdenum disulfide solid lubricants can effectively reduce the friction coefficient as well as its fluctuation compared with the un-textured samples and textured samples without lubricants. The textured surfaces filled with solid lubricants can also reduce the wear loss of the titanium samples and the adhesion on the counterpart steel balls by forming a thin lubricating film at the friction interface. The dimple-distance has a remarkable effect on both the average friction coefficients and the wear rates of titanium surfaces, while the depth of dimple only has an effect on the wear rates within just 90% confidence level. The decrease of the dimple-distance seems to be beneficial to improving the anti-friction and anti-wear properties of the textured surfaces filled with solid lubricants.