Synergistic lubrication reinforces and stores debris behaviors and mechanisms of biomimetic leaf-microgroove friction pairs

Friction pairs are crucial components of hydraulic motors and significantly affect their operational efficiency and reliability. However, friction pairs are highly susceptible to wear and failure, as hydraulic motors usually operate under drastically alternating loads. Inspired by the efficient fluid transport characteristics of leaf veins in nature, this study proposes innovative biomimetic leaf-microgrooves to achieve lubrication reinforcement and storage debris performance, thereby improving the anti-friction and wear resistance properties of friction pairs. By integrating friction and wear experiments with a theoretical study, the effects of leaf-microgroove structural parameters, namely, width, depth, and angle, on the tribological behavior and wear failure mechanism of friction pairs are investigated. The results show that the leaf-microgroove design can achieve a synergistic balance between the lubricant load-bearing capacity and the debris storage capacity. Compared with nongrooved friction pairs, optimized leaf-microgroove pairs can reduce the friction coefficient and wear loss by up to 38% and 64%, respectively. This bioinspired leaf-microgroove structure offers a novel method to enhance the antifriction and wear resistance properties of friction pairs.