Friction performance and optimisation of diamond-like texture on hydraulic cylinder surface

For the ring surface of a hydraulic cylinder, grid and striped textures have been demonstrated in many previous works to easily provide a conductive oil path, which increases the difficulty of generating converging wedges and are harmful to the formation of dynamic pressure lubrication, especially for full lubrication. Moreover, these studies used an orthogonal design method to study the hydrodynamic lubrication effect and friction performance of the surface without considering the comprehensive effect of multiple parameters with simultaneous changes, which may introduce errors into the simulation analysis. In this work, a diamond-like, non-conductive texture, which mimics shark skin, is developed and optimised to determine the optimal texture morphology while simultaneously considering the influence of multiple parameters, including the diamond angle, axial length ratio, and area occupancy, to optimise the surface of the friction pair. The results show that under the same working conditions, the lift of the diamond texture is nine times greater than that of the striped texture, while its friction coefficient is only one-quarter of that of the striped texture, which will greatly improve the friction and responsiveness of the hydraulic cylinder.