The effect of texture shape on the friction coefficient and stiffness of gas-lubricated parallel slider bearings

• The geometry of different texture shapes is optimized and compared.
• Friction and bearing stiffness are studied as a function of texture shape.
• The ellipsoidal texture shape minimizes friction and maximizes bearing stiffness.

Surface texturing is used to increase hydrodynamic pressure and reduce friction and wear between gas-lubricated parallel sliding surfaces in a variety of applications. The shape, geometry, and density of the patterned microtexture features (“dimples”) play a key role in the tribological performance of textured slider bearings. In this paper we evaluate the friction coefficient and stiffness of gas-lubricated textured parallel slider bearings as a function of six different texture shapes. The texture geometry and density are optimized in terms of minimum friction coefficient and maximum bearing stiffness for each individual texture shape, and then compared relative to each other. The ellipsoidal shape is found to yield the minimum friction coefficient and the highest bearing stiffness, independent of the operating conditions.