Surface texturing has emerged in the last decade as a viable option of surface engineering, resulting in significant improvement in tribological properties like wear resistance, coefficient of friction, load carrying capacity, etc. of mechanical components. In this paper, the effect of surface texturing on tribological properties of Polyamide (PA66) composite materials is studied considering elliptical texture pattern with varying orientations so as to observe the comparative friction and wear behavior of Polyamide (PA66) composites with and without surface texturing on mating surface at dry and wet lubrication using a pin-on-disc tribometer. The results show that the coefficient of friction varies considerably with surface texture patterns; some texture patterns show a higher load carrying capacity and due to that negative coefficient of friction is observed. Scanning Electron Micrographs (SEM) show that wear of some textured surfaces is reduced compared with the non-textured surface at both the lubricating conditions.

Surface texturing is a method for enhancing the tribological properties of surfaces for many years. Adding a controlled texture to one of the two faces in relative motion can have many positive effects, such as reduction of friction and wear and also increase in load carrying capacity (adding texture to both faces tends to increase friction and cause other negative effects). Early studies recognized the potential of micro asperities to provide hydrodynamic lift during film lubrication, while later research indicated that small-scale texturing could also provide lubricant reservoirs in poorly lubricated conditions and trap wear particles in boundary and dry lubrication. A further use of micro-textured surfaces may be found in the use of partial texturing—a textured region can take the place of macro-geometry such as steps or inclined planes meant to provide hydrodynamic lift. All effects may decrease the friction and wear between two sliding surfaces, but some experimental results also show a negative effect from surface texturing. In some cases, texturing is not optimized for a given case, in others, there is no optimal case; any kind of texturing may be worse than a smooth surface. Research and analysis presented to date demonstrates both the potential to improve tribological properties via surface texturing, and the need to understand the materials, lubricants and running conditions before a surface texture is applied (Wan and Xiong, 2008; and Wei et al., 2012).

Mechanical Engineering Journal, Surface texturing, Dimples, Tribometer, SEM Analysis.