Abstract
There are few experimental results available on film thickness at speeds above 5 m/s and they are almost all based on the optical ball-on-disc test rig. In contrast to the contacts in a rolling bearing, in which the lubricant in the oil reservoir distributes symmetrically, ball-on-disc contact shows asymmetry of lubricant distribution due to centrifugal effects. In order to closely imitate the contact occurring between the ball and the outer ring of a ball bearing, this study proposes an experimental model based on ball-on-glass ring contact. An optical matrix method is used to analyze the optical system, which is composed of a steel ball-lubricant-chromium-coated glass ring. Based on the optical analysis, the measurement system is improved in order to obtain a high quality interference image, which makes it possible to measure the film thickness at high-speeds conditions.
Highlights
Over the past few decades, the measurement of lubricant film thickness has caught considerable attention of many researchers in the elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) community
In the 1960s, Gohar and Cameron first applied optical interferometry to the measurement of oil film thickness in EHL, capturing the first classical interference image with a rotating steel ball loaded against a glass plate [1]
This paper reports a new ball-on-ring model for the measurement of oil film thickness, which may be suitable to imitate contact conditions occurring in a high-speed ball bearing
Summary
Over the past few decades, the measurement of lubricant film thickness has caught considerable attention of many researchers in the elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) community. In the 1960s, Gohar and Cameron first applied optical interferometry to the measurement of oil film thickness in EHL, capturing the first classical interference image with a rotating steel ball loaded against a glass plate [1]. They gave the results both in point and line contacts in their following works [2]. Compared to a rolling bearing, where the centrifugal force is perpendicular to the contact surface, the centrifugal force in the ball-on-disc contact is parallel to the disc face, which drags the oil out of the contact region This may increase the oil supply, and lead to the interference image haziness as mentioned in Liang’s study [11]. The preliminary experimental results prove the feasibility of the ball-on-ring model in the measurement of oil film thickness
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