Surface texturing is known as one of approaches to improve the lubrication characteristics of sliding surface. These lubrication characteristics vary depending on the shape, size and the placement of surface texturing. There are several studies on the lubrication characteristics of texturing surface during sliding movement of reciprocating machines. However, researchers are yet to clarify these characteristics when surface texturing is applied to a slider having a curvature. The purpose of this study is to develop optimum design guidelines for surface texturing by clarifying the effect of surface texturing on lubrication characteristics during reciprocating motion. To this end, we have focused on the placement of surface texturing to reduce friction loss in reciprocating motion. Numerical analysis has been performed under three different texturing placements by solving the Reynolds equation using the finite element method to evaluate the effect of surface texturing – (1) one of texturing placement was applied to the entire analysis area: (2) another was applied only to the center of the analysis area: (3) the other was applied only to both ends of the analysis area. The results found that friction loss was most reduced in the third case. Furthermore, when conducting a similar analysis with changing a distance between the two separated textures, we have been able to identify an optimal distance to reduce friction loss when applying surface texturing.
