Abstract—Laser surface texturing has become an important technology to improve the tribological properties of surfaces under lubricated friction. While several studies have analyzed how different micro-textures affect hydrodynamic pressure generation, further study of how distinct characteristics of the micro-texture geometry affect pressure generation remains needed. This study aims at conducting a comparative analysis of an optimized and modified chevron micro-texture with other conventional micro-textures used in literature using computational fluid dynamic simulations. The study showed that the modified chevron micro-texture with a large leg-width ratio outperformed other conventional micro-texture shapes such as the circle and rectangle by generating an asymmetric pressure distribution. Notably, the modified chevron configuration achieved a hydrodynamic pressure build-up approximately 44.1% greater than the rectangle geometry and 100.8% greater than that of the circular geometry. The experimental analysis conducted confirms the modified chevron micro-texture's expected frictional performance observed in the Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) simulations, where the modified chevron decreased the friction coefficient by 9.25% compared to the untextured case. The results of this study can be significant for various sliding applications in the automotive and aerospace industries.

Keywords—micro-texture, computational fluid dynamics, friction reduction, pressure build-up

Cite: Roland Bejjani and Marc Chamoun, "A Numerical Analysis of Different Micro-Textures in Improving Tribological Properties of Surfaces," International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research, Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 248-259, 2026. doi: 10.18178/ijmerr.15.3.248-259

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