Effect of micro-textures on the friction and wear characteristics of V-shaped sliding guideways

V-shaped sliding guideways are still used in many mechanical equipments due to their advantages of low cost, good load-bearing capacity, and good guidance. However, the guideways also have disadvantages such as high friction coefficient, high wear rate, and poor low-speed stability. To enhance the tribological performance of V-shaped sliding guideways, laser surface texturing technology was used to design and prepare linear and elliptical micro-textures on the contact surfaces of the guideways. Through different simulation software, it was verified that micro-textures can generate hydrodynamic action, and the influence of micro-textures on the contact stress of the guideway contact surface was analyzed. The friction and wear properties of different types of textured guideways were tested by a self-made reciprocating sliding guideway test platform under mixed lubrication condition. The results indicate that textured guideways can generate hydrodynamic action, and elliptical micro-textures can generate larger hydrodynamic action. In addition, the elliptical micro-textures located only on the surface of the lower guideway can significantly reduce its contact stress. Therefore, when the elliptical micro-textures are located on the surface of the lower guideway, the friction reduction effect is the best, with the lowest average friction coefficient, which is reduced by 31.7% compared to the guideways without textures.