• Inﬂuence of roughness parameters on coefﬁcient of friction under lubricated conditions

• # Keywords

Roughness parameters; surface texture; friction; lubrication.

• # Abstract

Surface texture and thus roughness parameters inﬂuence coefﬁcient of friction during sliding. In the present investigation, four kinds of surface textures with varying roughness were attained on the steel plate surfaces. The surface textures of the steel plates were characterized in terms of roughness parameter using optical proﬁlometer. Then the pins made of various materials, such as Al-4Mg alloy, Al-8Mg alloy, Cu, Pb, Al, Mg, Zn and Sn were slid against the prepared steel plates using an inclined pin-on-plate sliding tester under lubricated conditions. It was observed that the surface roughness parameter, namely, $R_{a}$, for different textured surfaces was comparable to one another although they were prepared by different machining techniques. It was also observed that for a given kind of surface texture the coefﬁcient of friction did not vary with $R_a$. However, the coefﬁcient of friction changes considerably with surface textures for similar $R_a$ values for all the materials investigated. Thus, attempts were made to study other surface roughness parameters of the steel plates and correlate them with coefﬁcient of friction. It was observed that among the surface roughness parameters, the mean slope of the proﬁle, $Del\ a(\Delta _a)$, was found to explain the variations best.

• # Author Affiliations

1. Department of Materials Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012
2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012