Abstract
An understanding of mechanisms which are responsible for elastohydrodynamic lubricant film formation under high sliding conditions is necessary to increase durability of machine parts. This work combines thin-film colorimetric interferometry for lubricant film thickness measurement and infrared microscopy for in-depth temperature mapping through the contact. The results describe the effect of operating conditions such as speed, slide-to-roll ratio, ambient temperature, and sliding direction on lubricant film thickness and temperature distribution. Film thickness data shows how much the film shape is sensitive to operating conditions when thermal effects are significant, while the temperature profiles provides an explanation of this behavior.
Highlights
Elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) is a regime of fluid-film lubrication of concentrated contacts, where a high contact pressure causes significant change in lubricant viscosity and surface deformations are of the same order as lubricant film thickness
The aim of this paper is to describe the effect of sliding velocity on lubricant film thickness with respect to the temperature distribution in EHL contact
These interferograms show the effect of speed, ambient temperature, slide-to-roll ratio (SRR), and rolling to sliding inclination
Summary
Elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) is a regime of fluid-film lubrication of concentrated contacts, where a high contact pressure causes significant change in lubricant viscosity and surface deformations are of the same order as lubricant film thickness. A classic isothermal EHL theory was established based on numerical work of Hamrock and Dowson [1] together with experimental work of Gohar and Cameron [2]. It was stated that additional shearing in lubricant contributes to increase in contact temperature and has other shear-induced effects such as shear thinning [5,6]. These thermal and non-Newtonian effects lead to the reduction in lubricant film thickness [3,4,5,6]. For relatively low slide-to-roll ratio this reduction is uniform, under high sliding conditions, lubricant film shape changes significantly
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