CFD analysis of texture depth effect on the performance of hydrodynamic lubricated bearing

Surface modification of the lubricated bearing such texturing has proven to improve the hydrodynamic performance. The present paper examined the effect of texture depth as well as the texture length on the tribological performance using computational fluid dynamic (CFD) approach. The cavitation model was also considered to obtain more realistic characteristic of bearing. It was shown that by increasing texture depth of the surface of bearing, the enhanced hydrodynamic pressure was achieved. Moreover, other interesting result is that the length of cavitation region decreases with the increase in texture depth and the decrease in texture length.