Classical EHL Versus Quantitative EHL: A Perspective Part I—Real Viscosity-Pressure Dependence and the Viscosity-Pressure Coefficient for Predicting Film Thickness

Abstract

That classical elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) is not a quantitative field can be illustrated by its failure to provide a consistent and rigorous definition of the viscosity-pressure coefficient. Indeed, if the pressure dependence of viscosity cannot be accurately described, then the viscosity-pressure coefficient cannot be defined. Classical EHL has employed fictional narratives to justify the pressure dependences that have been utilized. In this context, the purpose of this perspective article is to review specific and real needs from EHL and to show that data and models describing the viscosity-pressure dependence are already available and how they can properly be used. The final aim is to encourage researchers to change their philosophy of classical EHL to a quantitative approach, in which every hypothesis and every result, whether experimental or numerical, would be justified on the basis of acceptable physics.