Technologies assuring the service properties of friction pairs with cellular microrelief surfaces

Article focuses on the improvement of the technologies used to improve the durability of friction pair components. The authors use the piston compressor to study cellular microrelief surfaces of cylindrical components. The cells are shaped as elliptic paraboloid with uneven positive parameters. The use of cellular microrelief surfaces is highly preferred as they reduce the attrition wear of the friction pairs through assuring the hydrodynamic load capacity of the lubrication layer with the shape of the microrelief. The research goals included the parametric analysis of the lubrication layer behavior in the gap between the microrelief cells. To do this, the authors developed an analytical model based on the theory of hydrodynamic lubrication and constructed a CFD model using the ANSYS Fluent software. To contain the transfer equations, the authors used the turbulence model SST k–ω. Both models showed that the maximum hydrodynamic load capacity coincided with the 75%-length of the major axis of the elliptic cell, which also corresponds to 0.128 mm in cell depth. The maximum lifting hydrodynamic pressure on one microrelief cell amounted to 3 kPa. Based on the results of the parametric analysis, the authors claim that the cellular microrelief can be efficiently used to assure the service properties of friction pairs in process units. Keywords: friction pair; cylinder sleeve; piston ring; cellular microrelief; hydrodynamic model; mathematical model; ANSYS Fluent; two-dimensional parametric analysis.