On some aspects of numerical solutions of thin-film and mixed elastohydrodynamic lubrication

Author(s):  
D Zhu
Author(s):  
Hai-zhou Huang ◽  
Xi-chuan Niu ◽  
Xiao-yang Yuan

To investigate the thermal EHL (elastohydrodynamic lubrication) in point contact transmission, a model considering the two-dimensional surface velocity of tooth face and the running-in is proposed. The numerical solutions for pressure, temperature and film thickness distribution in the contact zone are obtained by solving equations including the Reynolds, Energy and the elastic displacement with variable dimension meshing method. The model was used to study the point contact transmission of the circular arc gear in a windlass. The main results show that it is pure rolling along the direction of tooth width, and the rolling speed plays a leading role in improving the lubricating performance and transmission efficiency of circular arc gear. The squeeze film effect makes the pressure peak tend to be gentle and the film thickness increase slightly.


2002 ◽  
Vol 124 (4) ◽  
pp. 811-814 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chaohui Zhang ◽  
Jianbin Luo ◽  
Shizhu Wen

In this paper, a viscosity modification model is developed which can be applied to describe the thin film lubrication problems. The viscosity distribution along the direction normal to solid surface is approached by a function proposed in this paper. Based on the formula, lubricating problem of thin film lubrication (TFL) in isothermal and incompressible condition is solved and the outcome is compared to the experimental data. In thin film lubrication, according to the computation outcomes, the lubrication film thickness is much greater than that in elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL). When the velocity is adequately low (i.e., film thickness is thin enough), the pressure distribution in the contact area is close to Hertzian distribution in which the second ridge of pressure is not obvious enough. The film shape demonstrates the earlobe-like form in thin film lubrication, which is similar to EHL while the film is comparatively thicker. The transformation relationships between film thickness and loads, velocities or atmosphere viscosity in thin film lubrication differ from those in EHL so that the transition from thin film lubrication to EHL can be clearly seen.


2012 ◽  
Vol 134 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoling Liu ◽  
Jinlei Cui ◽  
Peiran Yang

In order to investigate the size effect on elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) of roller pairs, complete numerical solutions for both the Newtonian fluid and the Eyring fluid thermal EHL problems of roller pairs under steady state conditions have been achieved. It can be seen that there is no size effect on the isothermal EHL performance; however, there is a very strong size effect on the thermal EHL performance. Results show that the term of shearing heat is the most important factor for the film temperature when the size of a contact changes. Comparison between the Newtonian solution and the Eyring solution has been made under some operating conditions. It is interesting to see that the effective viscosity of the Eyring fluid is nearly the same as that of the Newtonian fluid when the size of a contact is large enough. The non-Newtonian effect, therefore, can be ignored when the size of a contact is very large. It is equally interesting to see that the thermal effect can be ignored when the size of a contact is very small. In addition, the influence of the velocity parameter, the load parameter, and the slide-roll ratio on the lubricating performance for various sizes of contacts has been investigated.


1993 ◽  
Vol 115 (3) ◽  
pp. 439-444 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Chang ◽  
M. N. Webster ◽  
A. Jackson

The objective of this paper is to conduct a qualitative analysis on the effects of lubricant shear thinning, lubricant shear heating and the roughness-induced transients on the pressure rippling and roughness deformation that occurs under elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) conditions. To facilitate the analysis, the numerical solutions to an example problem of EHL line contact between a perfectly smooth surface and a sinusoidal rough surface are presented. This micro-EHL problem is first solved using the conventional model of a Newtonian lubricant and a stationary rough surface under isothermal conditions. It is then solved by including the non-Newtonian effects, the roughness-induced transients and the thermal effects in sequence, so that the changes in the results brought about by each of these elements can be clearly observed and then analyzed. The analysis, which is not limited to the model problem solved in this paper, suggests that misleading results of large pressure rippling and flattened surface roughness are obtained using the Newtonian lubricant models under steady-state, isothermal conditions. Much less micro-deformation of the surface roughness is actually produced because the magnitude of the pressure ripples is greatly limited by either the lubricant non-Newtonian shear thinning and shear heating or the roughness-induced transients.


1980 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 183-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. J. Hooke

It is shown that the film thickness in heavily loaded point contacts can be accurately calculated by comparing the inlet and exit zones of the contact with those of an equivalent line contact. The results become increasingly accurate as the extent of the inlet and exit regions is reduced and in the limit yields an exact solution. Even for moderately loaded contacts in which the inlet zone occupies a substantial part of the contact width the results are in close agreement with existing numerical solutions.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Matthew Michal ◽  
Marina Chugunova ◽  
Roman Taranets

For the thin-film model of a viscous flow which originates from lubrication approximation and has a full nonlinear curvature term, we prove existence of nonnegative weak solutions. Depending on initial data, we show algebraic or exponential dissipation of an energy functional which implies dissipation of the solution arc length that is a well known property for a Hele-Shaw flow. For the classical thin-film model with linearized curvature term, under some restrictions on parameter and gradient values, we also prove analytically the arc length dissipation property for positive solutions. We compare the numerical solutions for both models, with nonlinear and with linearized curvature terms. In regimes when solutions develop finite time singularities, we explain the difference in qualitative behaviour of solutions.


2011 ◽  
Vol 63-64 ◽  
pp. 147-151
Author(s):  
Li Ming Chu ◽  
Wang Long Li ◽  
Hsiang Chen Hsu

In this paper, the numerical solutions in pure squeeze motion are explored by using hydrodynamic lubrication (HL) and elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) models at constant squeeze velocity with power law lubricants. This paper also proposes a closed form solution to calculate the relationship between central pressure and central film thickness under HL condition. In order to save time calculation, the present closed form solution can be used as the initial condition for analysis of EHL at the high-pressure stage. In addition, this paper also discussed the HL and EHL squeeze film characteristics.


2016 ◽  
Vol 68 (5) ◽  
pp. 536-547
Author(s):  
Jianjun Zhang ◽  
Qibo Ni ◽  
Jing Wang ◽  
Feng Guo

Purpose Vibration exists widely in all machineries working under high speed. The unpredictability of vibration and the change of the relative surface speed may result in difficulties in the elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) analysis. By far, few studies on EHL relating to vibration have been published. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the effect of the vertical vibrations and the influence of temperature on the thermal EHL contacts. Design/methodology/approach The lubricant was assumed to be Newtonian fluid. The time-dependent numerical solutions were achieved instant after instant in each period of the vibration. At each instant, the pressure field was solved with a multi-level technique, the surface deformation was solved with a multi-level multi-integration method and the temperature filed was solved with a finite different scheme through a sweeping progress. The periodic error was checked at each end of the vibration period until the responses of pressure, film thickness and temperature were all periodic functions with the frequency of the roller’s vibrations. Findings The results reveal that normal vibration produces little drastic change of pressure, film thickness and temperature in EHL. Under some conditions, the vibrations of the roller can produce transient dimples within the contact conjunction. It is also showed that the lubrication in the same sliding is better than the opposite sliding. Research limitations/implications For the unpredictability of vibration, it is not easy to do the experiment to realize a real comparison with numerical results. The reach does not show any verification and consider the effect of non-Newtonian fluid. Originality/value The effect of the vertical vibrations on the thermal EHL point contact hast been studied. The effects of both the amplitude and the frequency on the predicted load-carrying capacity, minimum film thickness, center pressure and center temperature and the coefficient of friction were investigated. The role of the thermal effect was given.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander K. Y. Tam ◽  
Brendan Harding ◽  
J. Edward F. Green ◽  
Sanjeeva Balasuriya ◽  
Benjamin J. Binder

Understanding microbial biofilm growth is important to public health, because biofilms are a leading cause of persistent clinical infections. In this paper, we develop a thin-film model for microbial biofilm growth on a solid substratum to which it adheres strongly. We model biofilms as two-phase viscous fluid mixtures of living cells and extracellular fluid. The model tracks the movement, depletion, and uptake of nutrients explicitly, and incorporates cell proliferation via a nutrient-dependent source term. Notably, our thin-film reduction is two-dimensional and includes the vertical dependence of cell volume fraction. Numerical solutions show that this vertical dependence is weak for biologically-feasible parameters, reinforcing results from previous models in which this dependence was neglected. We exploit this weak dependence by writing and solving a simplified one-dimensional model that is computationally more efficient than the full model. We use both the one and two-dimensional models to predict how model parameters affect expansion speed and biofilm thickness. This analysis reveals that expansion speed depends on cell proliferation, nutrient availability, cell-cell adhesion on the upper surface, and slip on the biofilm-substratum interface. Our numerical solutions provide a means to qualitatively distinguish between the extensional flow and lubrication regimes, and quantitative predictions that can be tested in future experiments.


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