Tribological modeling and numerical simulation of textured elliptical contact surface of ball bearings

The tribological performance of textured ball bearings has large uncertainty because of the complexity of textured surfaces’ lubrication mechanism, so this study aims to reveal the mechanism that micro-textures affect the lubrication performance of textured elliptical contact surfaces of ball bearings. On the basis of the elastohydrodynamic lubrication theory and considering the influence of raceway textures on the oil film thickness between friction surfaces, a textured elliptical contact elastohydrodynamic lubrication analysis model was constructed. Subsequently, numerical calculations were carried out using the multigrid method, and the effects of key texture parameters on the oil film pressure distribution and oil film thickness distribution under different working conditions were analyzed. Numerical analysis and fluid simulation results indicate that the lubrication performance of textured friction pair surfaces improves with increasing lubricant viscosity, showing significant superiority over non-textured groups at higher viscosities, especially when the texture depth is 1.5-2.7 μm and texture radius is 4-8 μm. Under the varying lubricant viscosities, staggered textures have a greater optimal area density than parallel textures. Compared with parallel textures, staggered textures exhibit superior lubrication performance, which demonstrates that particular texture patterns can effectively enhance the lubrication performance of the friction pair surface of deep groove ball bearings.