Three-dimensional thermohydrodynamic investigation on the micro-groove textures in the main bearing of internal combustion engine for tribological performances

A three-dimensional thermohydrodynamic numerical simulation study was used to investigate the impact of the micro-groove surface texturing on the tribological performances in the main bearing of the internal combustion engine. For this purpose, various number of grooves and groove height to the bearing surface were applied to determine the optimal texture surface parameters by comparing the load-carrying capacity and friction force in the engine main bearing. In the multiphysics numerical model, the three-dimensional Navier–Stokes equation was employed considering the cavitation mechanism based on the Elrod method in the solution. Using the transverse grooves on the bearing surface altered the cavitation response and film reformation. To validate the use of the current numerical model for analyzing the bearings, the obtained results were compared with those of the published theoretical papers, where a good agreement was obtained. The bearing performance was studied in thermal interface conditions to find the optimal set textures parameters that gave minimum fiction force with minimum loss in load-carrying capacity. The bearing with the optimal micro-groove texture parameter showed a reduction in friction (around 16%) with the minimum reduction in load-carrying capacity (around 6%) and the maximum reduction of the flow work (around 15%) compared with the untextured bearing surface. This paper focuses on the thermohydrodynamic investigation with a combination of thermal effects of the fluid film in the textured bearing. Meanwhile, the heat transfer characteristic, temperature distribution of solid bodies, and convection heat transfer coefficient in the contact surfaces of the textured bearing were investigated. The proposed multiphysics numerical model can be widely used for predicting the optimal texture surface parameters in different engineering systems modeling. Moreover, using the three-dimensional-based numerical model is more cost-effective compared with the experimental evaluation of the textured surface.