Elastohydrodynamic Lubrication of Heavily Loaded Circular Contacts

Abstract

The paper is concerned with theoretical analysis and experimental measurement of lubricant film thickness in heavily loaded elastohydrodynamic contacts in which the area of elastic deformation is approximately circular. The inverse elastohydrodynamic technique for numerical analysis of contacts of this type described by Evans and Snidle(9) has been used to produce solutions covering a wide range of conditions representative of engineering practice. Detailed solutions for film thickness and pressure have been obtained for conditions giving rise to maximum contact pressures of up to 4.1 GPa with steel surfaces and a mineral oil lubricant. On the basis of these results charts for film thickness have been constructed using the non-dimensional groups proposed by Moes and Bosma(12). Experimental measurements of film thickness have been made using the optical interferometry technique. The conditions used in the experiments have been numerically analysed to provide a direct comparison between theory and experiment. The comparison shows excellent agreement between the theoretical predictions and corresponding experimental measurements.