Investigation of tribology and wear prediction of a polymer coating consisting of GO and WC on the surfaces of three textures

To improve the wear resistance of lubricated mechanical components operating under dry sliding conditions, the tribological properties and wear life of textured surface coatings on CuPb24Sn substrates were investigated. The primary objectives were to evaluate the influence of texture geometry on coating performance and establish a predictive wear simulation model. Circular, square, and triangular annular micro-textured arrays were fabricated via laser ablation, followed by spray deposition of a graphene oxide/tungsten carbide (WC)-reinforced polymer coating. Coating performance was studied by combining friction and wear testing with Abaqus wear simulation. The experimental results revealed that under identical loads, the triangular-textured coating exhibited the highest average wear rate, 1.14 times and 1.09 times greater than the circular-textured and square-textured coatings, respectively. The circular texture demonstrated optimal performance and had a minimal deformation and stress concentration due to its geometric uniformity. It exhibited superior debris trapping ability and lubricating film formation capacity. The Abaqus model achieved high accuracy for wear prediction, with maximum errors below 9.03% and a minimum error of 0.86% under 2 N and 3 N loads, enabling reliable wear life estimation for textured coatings.