A study of floating of a slider with micro/nanoscale surface structure on a rotating disk

Abstract

It has been reported that laser textured surfaces have good tribological performance in the case of gas lubrication as well as the case of liquid lubrication. The mechanism of the gas lubrication with surface texturing is different from that of the liquid lubrication, but it had not been explained. Recently, the mechanism of high gas pressure generation was theoretically clarified [S. Yonemura et al., Tribol. Lett. 55, 437-454 (2014), doi:10.1007/s11249-014-0368-2]. In their work, they pointed out the two features of a pressure distribution which play a key role in obtaining high average gas pressure. In the present work, we point out the third feature which is important for high gas pressure generation. "Third, the pressure rise at the outlet of the dimple is greater than the pressure drop at the inlet of the dimple." The third feature is beneficial for high gas pressure generation in the case where the spatially averaged gas pressure is close to the ambient pressure. The cause of the third feature is herein explained analytically.