NON-UNIFORM BEHAVIOR OF LUBRICANT FLOW ACCORDING TO SURFACE TEXTURING DISTRIBUTION

This study presents and discusses how the lubricant film flows in and around the dimples of a textured surface. Currently some authors assume that the emptying of the dimples starts in their front edge (according to the lubricant's flow), but several tests, with different texturing densities and distances, have showed that this behavior can only be seen in the first row of dimples or, if distance is long enough, in the following rows. However, in those cases where rows are closely distributed (high texturing densities) the emptying of the dimples shows two lateral fronts instead of a frontal one. The study led to the following conclusions: the way pockets are emptied depends on their distribution and position in the dimples' array; frontal emptying phenomenon is only present at first row dimples or when distance between rows is long enough; when surrounding pockets modify how the lubricant reaches the dimple, the frontal emptying phenomenon becomes a bi-edged one, with two emptying fronts instead of one; as surface texturing requires a huge number of pockets at usually high texturing densities, it can be asserted than the frontal emptying phenomenon is not the most common one even though it's the one that several authors use to study the emptying phenomenon.