Date Available

12-7-2011

Year of Publication

2003

Document Type

Thesis

College

Engineering

Department

Mechanical Engineering

First Advisor

L. Scott Stephens

Abstract

The present thesis is a comparative study of the hydrodynamic effects of a few deterministic microasperity shapes in a thrust slider application. Numerical study based on finite difference methods is used to find the trend of important tribological properties such as friction and leakage. Also, this work utilizes a distinctive and practical approach for comparison by considering constant load conditions, instead of constant film thickness, as is expected in an operating thrust bearing. The results are encouraging and clearly reveal the existence of a transition point for asperity area fraction where a reversal in trends for both the coefficient of friction and leakage is observed. The shapes of asperities affect leakage but, have a negligible effect on coefficient of friction; however, the size and the type of asperity (positive or negative) do influence it. The effects of orientation, on the other hand, are found both on the coefficient of friction and leakage. Triangular asperities exhibit an advantage over the other shapes in terms of leakage. In general, the impact of shapes is distinguishable, more at higher asperity area fractions in accordance with the geometrical differences.

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