Fully-coupled thermomechanical analysis for sliding contact between textured slipper and swashplate in axial piston pump

Abstract

A fully coupled thermo-mechanical model is developed to investigate the transient sliding contact between textured slipper and swashplate considering the frictional heating. The model is capable of predicting the friction stress, contact temperature distribution and friction coefficient of the textured slipper pair. The effects of the sliding rate on the friction stress and contact temperature are studied. In addition, the effects of material stiffness and friction coefficient on contact temperature are further discussed. Based on the thermo-mechanical model, a parametric study is conducted to evaluate the friction coefficient and flash temperature. It is found that the greater the slip rates, the higher the contact temperature, and thus, the more the friction reduction. The shear bearing capacity of the interface material decreases with the increase of contact temperature, and finally results in the friction stress reduction. Due to the effect of friction force, contact temperature increases with the increase of friction coefficient. The change of material stiffness have little effect on temperature rise. The effective parameters combination of the textured slipper pair can be selected to achieve minimum coefficient. For selected texture parameters, the flash temperature between textured slipper and swashplate becomes higher due to the increase of slip rate and external load, but the friction coefficient decreases.