Recent Patents on Manufacturing Microtextured Surface

Background: Surface microtextured technology is an expansion and extension of biomimicry in the tribology field, promoting vigorous development in microtextured tribology. Through artificial means, tiny convex hulls, craters, or stripes of specific size and arrangement are processed on the friction surfaces to change the morphology and contact angle of the surfaces and improve the surface contact state or the lubrication effect. The function and properties of microtextured surfaces are determined by optimizing their geometrical parameters, but the microtextured geometrical parameters require a high-level machining quality. It is necessary to analyze and summarize the existing research on manufacturing microtextured surfaces. By summarizing the preparation methods of microtextured surfaces in the past decade, some valuable conclusions are drawn to predict the future development of technology for manufacturing microtextured surfaces and provide a reference for researchers in related fields. This paper summarizes the representative patents related to the methods of manufacturing microtextured surfaces, analyzes the properties of the microtextured surfaces produced by each method, and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of these methods. The existing problems are summarised through the analyses of patents related to microtextured preparation methods. The future development of new preparation methods has prospected. By cooperating with various processing technologies and optimizing the processing methods, the microtextured surfaces can meet various functional requirements, and the manufacturing precision is higher than before. The processing method needs further improvement according to the working conditions. More new technologies will be invented to create microtextured surfaces.