The friction and wear behavior of undulated surfaces made of steel and tin base babbit are examined experimentally at the low sliding speed with severe loading condition. Steel is used as countersurface disk material under pin-on-disk type sliding condition.
Undulated surfaces can improve the friction and wear properties under dry friction condition since undulated surfaces trap wear particles in their cavities and prohibit wear particles from agglomeration. However, under boundary lubrication condition, friction and wear properties of undulated surfaces are inferior to those of flat surfaces. It is shown that land width and the ratio of wear volume to cavity volume are the most important factors in friction behavior of undulated surfaces under dry friction condition, and there exists optimum land width minimizing friction and wear of undulated surfaces.
