Wall slip induced by a micropolar fluid

Abstract

Lubrication theory is devoted to the study of thin-film flows, More often, the fluid can be considered as a Newtonian one and no-slip boundary conditions can be retained for the velocity at the fluid solid interface. With these assumptions it is possible to deduce from the (Navier) Stokes system a simplified equation describing the flow: the Reynolds equation. It allows to compute the pressure distribution inside the film and to obtain overall performances of a lubricated device such as load and friction coefficient. For very thin films, however, surface effects at the fluid solid interface become very important and no-slip conditions cannot be retained. Solid surfaces exert some influence on the liquid molecules and the effective shear viscosity along the boundary differs from the classical bulk shear viscosity. Moreover, the microstructure of the fluid cannot be ignored, especially the effects of solid-particle additives in the lubricant. Micropolar theory for fluids is often adopted to account of such microstructure and microrotation. In the present study, a thin micropolar fluid model with new boundary conditions at the fluid–solid interface is considered. This condition links velocity and microrotation at the interface by introducing a so-called “boundary viscosity”. By way of asymptotic analysis, a generalized micropolar Reynolds equation is obtained. Numerical results show the influence of the new boundary conditions for the load and friction coefficients. Comparisons are made with other works that retain the no-slip boundary conditions.