Surface Roughness

Rajesh Sharma
Tribology Elective Course Jan
2010

Tribology History
• Use of wheels from 3500 B.C.
• A chariot with animal fat lubricant in wheel
bearing: Egypt
• Use of lubricant during transportation*
• Ball thrust bearing used to support a
statue by a sculptor: about 40 BC
– Found in a lake Nimi near Rome #

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 Friction
• First postulates by Vinci(1452-1519)
– Friction force
– proportional to Load
– independent of nominal area of contact

• In 1699, Amonton credited with the laws

• Coulomb in 1780 put forth 3rd law of friction
– Friction independent of velocity

Early Developments
• 1684 Hooke
– Combination of steel shaft and metal bush as preferable
combination instead of wood shod with iron for wheel
bearings.

• 1883 Beauchamp Tower

– Discovered phenomenon of hydrodynamic lubrication

• 1883 Petrof (Petrov)

– Concept of viscous shearing

• 1886 Osborne Reynolds

– Theoretical interpretation of hydrodynamic lubrication

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 Tribology in Industry
• Energy dissipation or loss
– Resistance to motion and friction
• Wear
– Surface changes may be beneficial or disastrous
– One half of GNP used to replace components after wear

• Friction and wear not always disadvantageous

• Wear effects are more important than frictional
losses
• Environmental factors due to use of lubricants

Tribological Solutions
Transverse displacement
Low friction/wear small
Low load cases Polymer with visco-
elasticity
Reduce intimate contact
Some sort of
Thermal stability elastomeric
important property
Low resistance to Widely employed
transverse shear tribological
Graphite or MoS2 solution

Built in press. due Load carried without

mechanical contact
to fluid film
Electric meters 6
Water, oil, air
 Surface Topography

Mean of Asperity Summits

Mean of Surface

Contact of Surfaces
Flat and Rigid Surface

Reference Plane
Mean of Asperity
Summits

Typical Contact
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 Significance
• Friction, lubrication, and
wear issues in automobile
brake linings, floor
surfaces, tires, roller
bearings, cam & follower
and gears
• Contact resistance in
space applications
• Fluid dynamics in pipe flow
and flow resistance of ship
hulls
• Etc. etc.
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Categories
• Definitions and indications for surface roughness
parameters(for industrial products)are specified.
• They are:
– arithmetical mean roughness(Ra)
– maximum height(Ry),
– ten-point mean roughness(Rz),
– mean spacing of profile irregularities(Sm),
– mean spacing of local peaks of the profile(S)
– profile bearing length ratio(tp).

• Surface roughness is given as the arithmetical

mean value for a randomly sampled area.
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 Typical ways for obtaining
surface roughness
• Arithmetic Mean Average
– A section of standard length is sampled from the
mean line on the roughness chart. The mean line is
laid on a Cartesian coordinate system wherein the
mean line runs in the direction of the x-axis and
magnification is the y-axis.

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• Maximum peak(Ry)
– A section of standard length is sampled from
the mean line on the roughness chart. The
distance between the peaks and valleys of the
sampled line is measured in the y direction.

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• Ten-point mean roughness(Rz)
– A section of standard length is sampled from
the mean line on the roughness chart. The
distance between the peaks and valleys of the
sampled line is measured in the y direction.
Then, the average peak is obtained among 5
tallest peaks(Yp), as is the average valley
between 5 lowest valleys(Yv).

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 Mean spacing of profile
irregularities
Average of the values of the spacing between irregularities
Smi of the profile inside an evaluation length.

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Mean spacing of local peaks

of the profile
• Click to add an outline

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 Roughness Parameters
• Amplitude parameters
– Extreme-value
parameters
– Average parameters Rt
– Height distribution
• Texture parameters

• R p, R v

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 Amplitude: Height Distribution

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Amplitude: Average Parameters

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Rq=1.25 Ra
 Z

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Typical Contact

Original shape P
Contact area

2a

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 Asperity

Asperities

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•BAC or Bearing Area Curve is an assessment of the percent 

of bearing area at a certain distance (P) from the highest
peak. It is sometimes used to estimate the percent of contact 
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area available as surface wear occurs.
 Surface Contacts
• Deformation due to load acting on a point
– Elastic
• Simple and reversible
– Plastic
• Complex phenominon and irreversible

In most of the cases the deformation may be

plastic at the microlevel geometries e.g. Metal
working

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contd.
• Contact of bodies defined by arcs
– Wheel on tracks, rolling bearing, gear teeth,
rope drives, etc.
• Small protuberances
– Spherical shape at contact
• Target : Friction and heat

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 Multi-Asperity Models
(Greenwood and Williamson, 1966, Proceedings of the Royal Society
of London, A295, pp. 300-319.)

Assumptions
 All asperities are spherical and have the same summit
curvature.
 The asperities have a statistical distribution of heights
(Gaussian).
z (z)

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Click to add title

• Click to add an outline

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 Figs
• Click to add an outline

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172 slaves pulling a large statue weighing about 6x105 N

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 Probably used
about A.D. 40
by a sculptor to
support a
statue.
Found in 1928
in Lake Nimi
near Rome

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Multi-Asperity Models
(Greenwood and Williamson, 1966, Proceedings of the Royal Society
of London, A295, pp. 300-319.)

Assumptions (cont’d)
 Deformation is linear elastic and isotropic.
 Asperities are uncoupled from each other.
 Ignore bulk deformation.
z (z)

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Two Scales of the Contact
• Contact Bump (larger, micro-scale)

• Asperities (smaller, nano-scale)

Nominal Surface

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Irregularities

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Click to add title

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