Rolling of a cylinder on the deformable surface with account of viscous lubricant

Abstract

A friction unit describing in this article consists of an absolute solid cylinder and a deformable surface. The cylinder rolls on the surface. The viscous liquid is applied to the surface as a lubricant. The surface is getting deformed if the cylinder is rolling under the load. This article demonstrates that if the cylinder is rolling without load, a locally thin layer of lubricant is formed between the surface and the cylinder. When the cylinder is rolling on the surface, the surface is deforming by the load. A thin layer of lubricant between the cylinder and the surface also exists. Moreover, the presence of a layer of the lubricant leads to an increase of an impact area and to a decrease in the load per surface unit. The distribution of pressure in the thin layer of liquid is calculated. The presence of the layer of viscous incompressible liquid in a cylinder-surface pair leads to an increase of a contact area and more even pressure distribution over the surface. As a result, the measures of pressure on the surface is significantly reduced. The rolling cylinder makes less pressure than it is calculated in statics.