Friction and wear characteristics modification via laser surface textured grooves

The commensurate contact condition plays a key role in the directional friction properties and wear performance when two surfaces slide against each other. An experimental study on bidirectional friction and wear control by nanosecond pulsed laser selective texturing of grooves on AISI 304 stainless steel (SS) and TA2 titanium (Ti) surfaces of the sliding components was proposed. The influence of the aspect ratio (AR) and groove orientation angle on directional friction properties and wear performance was investigated. The AR(2)and 75 degrees samples performed best with 68.13 and 21.71% overall average coefficient of friction reduction for the Ti-Ti and SS-SS interfaces, respectively. The AR(5.5)generated the least wear for the Ti-Ti and SS-SS pairs. The results take us a step closer to deriving a more effective, accurate, and dependable guideline for designing laser-machined surface grooves for directional sliding friction control.