Effects of surface texture on the lubrication performance of the floating ring bearing

•The effects of surface textures on the performances of FRB have been studied.•Finite cell method is employed to model the surface texture.•The results indicate that textures can considerately affect the FRB performance.•The texture can significantly decrease the film temperature rise.

To study the effects of the surface texture on the performance of floating ring bearings (FRB), we employ a deterministic lumped-parameter thermal model to estimate the FRB performance. A multiscale method, finite cell method, is used to improve the computational efficiency. The model is first validated through comparing the predicted results with measured data. Then, the effects of nine types of textures on the bearing behaviors are systematically studied. The results show that textures can considerately affect the FRB performance, such as significantly increasing the side leakage and reducing the temperature rise, which is desirable in many cases for the turbocharger development.