Effect of the Grooved Rod on the Friction Force of U-Cup Hydraulic Rod Seal with Rough Lip

There are few works that have studied the sealing mechanism between two rough surfaces. In the present article, an elastohydrodynamic one-dimensional model of the U-cup hydraulic seal is performed by taking into account both the shaft and the lip roughness. The numerical results are compared with the inverse hydrodynamic lubrication (IHL) theory and are validated with previously published experiments. Differences confirm the accuracy of the elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) modeling with a gap of about 5% between numerical and experimental results.The study of the textured shaft effect is performed in three steps: by first changing the shape of the grooves, then changing their amplitudes, and finally by varying their densities. The results demonstrate that a dry contact could occur for some pattern profiles, whereas full-film lubrication is verified for other profiles. The numerical simulations confirm that the asymmetric groove shape affects the friction and show a significant impact of the pattern amplitude on the power loss. Additionally, a slight effect of the groove density is observed on the friction force.