Abstract
Slider bearing is a widely used load-carrying element in the industry. While a large number of studies have investigated the effect of overall surface curvature, very few have considered sinusoidal surface. Recently, consideration of surface roughness/waviness or intentional wave design has been identified as an important issue in the manufacture of hard disk driver, mechanical seal, hydraulic machine, and etc. This study investigated the load-carrying capacity of a finite-width slider bearing with a wavy surface. Film thickness ratios, length-width ratio, ambient pressure, amplitude, and partial distribution were selected as the simulation parameters. The calculation results showed that the load-carrying capacity rapidly varied at small film thickness ratio, but the waviness near the area of minimum film thickness made much more influence with an increase in film thickness ratio. As the length-width ratio of bearing was increased, ambient pressure became more influential at small film thickness ratios. Furthermore a particular partial distribution of the wavy area led to higher load-carrying capacity than did the whole distribution. Consequently, the results of this study are expected to be of use in surface micro-machining of finite-width slider bearings.
