Combined influence of streaming potential and substrate compliance on load capacity of a planar slider bearing

In the present study, we investigate the combined interplay of streaming potential and substrate compliance with sliding dynamics on the load carrying capacity of a planar slider bearing. We relax previously utilized simplifying assumptions to model the electrokinetic effects and demonstrate that the streaming potential may augment the load carrying capacity of the bearing to a considerable extent. Interestingly, we also reveal that the electrokinetically augmented load carrying capacity exhibits strong dependencies on a combination of the compliance and the sliding dynamics, which have, hitherto, not been extensively explored. This rich interplay reveals certain parametric regimes of interest, which are significant from the viewpoint of practical design considerations. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3624615]