Homogenization of the unstationary incompressible Reynolds equation

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the effects of surface roughness during hydrodynamic lubrication. In the numerical analysis a very fine mesh is needed to resolve the surface roughness, suggesting some type of averaging. A rigorous way to do this is to use the general theory of homogenization. In most works about the influence of surface roughness, it is assumed that only the stationary surface is rough. This means that the governing Reynolds type equation does not involve time. However, recently, homogenization was successfully applied to analyze a situation where both surfaces are rough and the lubricant is assumed to have constant bulk modulus. In this paper we will consider a case where both surfaces are assumed to be rough, but the lubricant is incompressible. It is also clearly demonstrated, in this case that homogenization is an efficient approach. Moreover, several numerical results are presented and compared with those corresponding to where a constant bulk modulus is assumed to govern the lubricant compressibility. In particular, the result shows a significant difference in the asymptotic behavior between the incompressible case and that with constant bulk modulus.