Transient Elastohydrodynamic Lubrication of Rough Contact Surface for Intermittent Motion

Abstract

The current study aims to study the characteristics of transient elastohydrodynamic lubrication of smooth and rough surface contacts subjected to intermittent motion for different inactive periods of motion and deceleration/acceleration periods to fulfill an identified need for such conjunction. In this case, the non-steady Reynolds’ equation, the film thickness equation with elastic deformation and taking into account the influence of surface roughness, and the load balance equation are simultaneously solved using the Newton-Raphson with Gauss-Seidel iterations method to determine the film profile and pressure distribution at various time steps. Surface contact of sinusoidal waves is presented with different amplitudes and wavelengths. The results indicated that surface waviness causes random oscillations in pressure and film profiles at different time steps. The greater the amplitude of the waviness, the more pressure and film profile variations occur. The magnitude of the pressure and film profile fluctuations becomes little noticeable as the wavelength of a wavy surface rises. The findings of this investigation also revealed that increasing the inactive duration for wavy surfaces results in zero minimum film thickness and surface contact. Squeezing action is ineffective in conveying loading capacity in this circumstance. The central and maximum pressure heights increase during the stop time interval as stop time increases. The centre film thickness increases at the end of the deceleration phase when the deceleration/acceleration period is reduced, but the minimum film thickness is unaffected. In fact, the minimum film thickness tends to be zero at the end of the deceleration phase, regardless of the deceleration/acceleration period. The central and maximum pressure increase during the stop time interval with the decrease of the deceleration/acceleration period. The difference between the results for smooth and wavy surface contacts is the appearance of fluctuations in film and pressure profiles, as well as the reduction of the film thickness and increase in pressure for the wavy surface when compared to contact with a smooth surface.