Surface roughness effects on curved pivoted slider bearings with couple stress fluid

Abstract

In this paper the effect of surface roughness on the performance of curved pivoted slider bearings is studied. A more general type of surface roughness is mathematically modelled by a stochastic random variable with nonzero mean, variance and skewness. The averaged modified Reynolds type equation is derived on the basis of Stokes microcontinuum theory for couple stress fluids. The closed-form expressions for the mean pressure, load-carrying capacity, frictional force and the centre of pressure are obtained. Numerical computations show that the performance of the slider bearing is improved by the use of lubricants with additives (couple stress fluid) as compared to Newtonian lubricants. Further, it is observed that the negatively skewed surface roughness increases the load-carrying capacity and frictional force and reduces the coefficient of friction, whereas the positively skewed surface roughness on the bearing surface adversely affects the performance of the pivoted slider bearings. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.