The influence of surface texturing and boundary slip on the film thickness in parallel sliding surfaces

The influence of wall slip on fluid flow is of interest for many engineering topics involving liquid-solid interfacial phenomena, such as flow through porous media, liquid coatings and lubrication. Boundary slip can act as a method to reduce friction in lubricated contacts. Furthermore, surface texturing can also play a positive role in enhancing the film thickness. Therefore, a combination of these two methods can be beneficial in order to improve the tribological performance of lubricated contacts. Although the study of frictional behaviour of surfaces with boundary slip has been getting more attention in recent years, the combination of these two methods of surface property modification is interesting to investigate. For the no-slip boundary condition, the first layer of fluid molecules has the same velocity as the contacting solid surface and this condition has been widely applied in the field of fluid mechanics. In lubricated contacts with boundary slip, the first layer of the lubricant molecules moves at a different velocity from the solid surface. In this article, the frictional behaviour of boundary slip in parallel sliding lubricated contacts for textured surfaces is investigated. This study shows that boundary slip has a significant influence on the film thickness in the case of textured surfaces. Furthermore, it is possible to increase the film thickness, and enhance the frictional behaviour by modifying the boundary slip parameters.