Effects of Structural Vibrations on the Film Thickness in an EHL Circular Contact

1999 ◽  
Vol 121 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. H. Wijnant ◽  
C. H. Venner ◽  
R. Larsson ◽  
P. Eriksson

In elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL), one generally imposes force balance, i.e., the contact force resulting from the pressure in the contact is equal to the applied load. When studying the effect of structural vibrations, this force balance equation obviously does not hold and the more general equation of motion is required. In Wijnant and Venner (1996), an EHL contact model was introduced that incorporates both squeeze and entraining motion as well as the equation of motion. It was shown numerically that due to a small initial deviation or initial velocity, the rolling element starts an oscillatory motion around the equilibrium position. This motion is slightly damped because of the viscous losses in the lubricant. Moreover, it was shown that these oscillations cause film thickness modulations with a wavelength, directly related to the dimensionless frequency Ω. This paper compares results from experiments that were carried out on a ball and disk apparatus with results obtained with the EHL contact model. In this experiment, the applied load was rapidly increased by impacting a wedge between the base and the ball holder. This results in an increase of the contact area and, as a result of inertia forces of the ball, disk and supports, and oscillatory motion of the contacting bodies. Modulations in the film thickness which result from these oscillations, are clearly visible. The contact model was tailored to this experiment and a qualitatively close agreement has been found.

2000 ◽  
Vol 122 (4) ◽  
pp. 711-720 ◽  
Author(s):  
Young S. Kang ◽  
Farshid Sadeghi ◽  
Xiaolan Ai

A model was developed to study the effects of a rigid debris on elastohydrodynamic lubrication of rolling/sliding contacts. In order to achieve the objectives the time dependent Reynolds equation was modified to include the effects of an ellipsoidal shaped debris. The modified time dependent Reynolds and elasticity equations were simultaneously solved to determine the pressure and film thickness in EHL contacts. The debris force balance equation was solved to determine the debris velocity. The model was then used to obtain results for a variety of loads, speeds, and debris sizes. The results indicate that the debris has a significant effect on the pressure distribution and causes a dent on the rolling/sliding bounding surfaces. Depending on the size and location of the debris the pressure generated within the contact can be high enough to plastically deform the bounding surfaces. Debris smaller than the minimum film thickness do not enter the contact and only large and more spherical debris move toward the contact. [S0742-4787(11)00501-7]


Author(s):  
A. D. Chapkov ◽  
C. H. Venner ◽  
A. A. Lubrecht

The influence of surface roughness on the performance of bearings and gears operating under ElastoHydrodynamic Lubrication (EHL) conditions has become increasingly important over the last decade, as the average film thickness decreased due to various influences. Surface features can reduce the minimum film thickness and thus increase the wear. They can also increase the temperature and the pressure fluctuations, which directly affects the component life. In order to describe the roughness geometry inside an EHL contact, the amplitude reduction of harmonic waviness has been studied over the last ten years. This theory currently allows a quantitative prediction of the waviness amplitude and includes the influence of wavelength and contact operating conditions. However, the model assumes a Newtonian behaviour of the lubricant. The current paper makes a first contribution to the extension of the roughness amplitude reduction for EHL point contacts including non-Newtonian effects.


2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 924-936 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuanyuan Zhang ◽  
Huaiju Liu ◽  
Caichao Zhu ◽  
Chaosheng Song ◽  
Zufeng Li

Stiffness properties of interfacial engineering surfaces are of great importance to the dynamic performance of relevant mechanical systems. Normal contact stiffness and oil film stiffness of line contact problems are studied in this work analytically and numerically. The Hertzian contact theory and the Yang–Sun method are applied to predict the contact stiffness, while the empirical elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) film thickness method and the complete numerical EHL model are used to predict the oil film stiffness. The numerical model mainly consists of the Reynolds equation; the film thickness equation, in which the regular surface roughness is taken into consideration; the force balance equation; and the viscosity-pressure equation. The effects of the normal load, rolling speed, regular surface waviness, and starved lubrication level on the oil film stiffness are investigated.


2002 ◽  
Vol 124 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Messe´ ◽  
A. A. Lubrecht

In ElastoHydrodynamic Lubrication (EHL), transient processes are much more common than stationary ones. Predicting the film thickness under steady state conditions has become straight forward. Using numerical methods, the effect of transient conditions on the film thickness profile can be computed. However, those analyses are very time consuming even using advanced numerical techniques. As such, they are inadequate for industrial applications as design and development. This paper shows that under certain assumptions, an approximate formula of the transient film thickness profile can be derived under transient operating conditions. The variations can occur in the geometry, the load or the hydrodynamic velocity. The theory can handle all variations separately, or even a combination of several parameters varying simultaneously. The analytical approximation obtained is rather good apart from the constriction at the contact edge(s). This approach can be applied to any set of time dependent conditions (load, speed, geometry). As an example an EHL contact is studied in which reversal of the entrainment velocity occurs.


2020 ◽  
Vol 72 (10) ◽  
pp. 1285-1293
Author(s):  
Jia-Jia Zhao ◽  
Ming-Xing Lin ◽  
Xian-Chun Song ◽  
Nan Wei

Purpose This paper aims to provide thermal elastohydrodynamic lubrication (TEHL) contact model to study all balls’ lubrication performance of the ball screw when the multidirectional load is applied. Design/methodology/approach A new TEHL contact model combining the multidirectional load and the roughness surface texture is established to describe fatigue life of the ball screw. Meanwhile, the authors use the Reynolds equation to study the lubrication performance of the ball screw. Findings When the multidirectional load is applied, contact load, slide-roll ratio and entrainment velocity of all balls have a periodic shape. The TEHL performance values at the ball-screw contact points including contact stress, shear stress, minimum film thickness and temperature rise are higher than that at the ball-nut contact points. The TEHL performance values increase with the increase of root mean square (RMS) except for the film thickness. In addition, the radial load of the ball screw has a significant effect on the fatigue life. Originality/value The results of the studies demonstrate the new TEHL contact model that provides the instructive significance to analyze the fatigue life of the ball screw under the multidirectional load. Peer review The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-03-2020-0097/


2016 ◽  
Vol 835 ◽  
pp. 593-598
Author(s):  
Khanittha Wongseedakaew

This paper presents the theoretical characteristics of elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) in point contact under steady operating conditions of ball bearing thrust bearing. The numerical simulations employed a finite different method, Newton Raphson method and multigrid method to solve the modified Reynolds equation with a Non-Newtonian fluid. The general numerical schemes are implemented to investigate the profile of pressure and film thickness, with varying applied loads viscosity of lubricants and speeds. The results show that the applied load has significant effect on the film thickness profile. The contact is increase area but film thickness decrease as the applied load increase. The minimum film thickness and friction coefficient both increase significantly as viscosity of lubricant is increased. The increasing of surface velocity, the film thickness increase but film pressure decrease.


Author(s):  
Rong-Tsong Lee ◽  
Hsiao-Ming Chu ◽  
Yuang-Cherng Chiou

The film thickness under steady state conditions can be measured by using an optical interferometer. An inverse approach is proposed for estimating the pressure distribution on the basis of film thickness measurement in elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) circular contacts. This approach is constructed from the approximated model of elastic deformation and force balance equations. To obtain an accurate pressure, it is necessary to divide the domain into a few regions on account of the singularity at the pressure spike. The principle of measuring point selection is proposed, and the problem of pressure fluctuation is overcome. On the basis of the smoothed pressure distribution, the apparent viscosity of the film can be obtained from the Reynolds equation. The least-squares method is used to compute the optimum value of the pressure-viscosity index. Results show that the best region for estimating the pressure-viscosity index is along the x axis because the Poiseuille term becomes zero in the Reynolds equation on account of the symmetry. In this region, the estimated pressure-viscosity index shows very good agreement with the exact value when measurement errors are neglected. When measurement errors are taken into account, the close agreement shows the potential of the proposed approach in estimating accurate values of the pressure-viscosity index. Generally, the error in estimating the pressure-viscosity index increases with increasing standard deviation of the measurement error, load, speed, material parameter and absolute error of the measured film thickness. The inverse approach can also be used to estimate the pressure distribution on a film thickness map obtained from an optical EHL tester. Moreover, the agreement between the actual and the estimated values of z is quite good.


Author(s):  
J.Y Jang ◽  
M.M Khonsari ◽  
S Bair

Realistic prediction of the characteristics of the elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) contact requires consideration of the appropriate constitutive equation for the lubricant. In many applications, the lubricant exhibits a shear-thinning behaviour which significantly affects the film thickness. In this paper, we present a generalized formulation that can efficiently treat shear-thinning fluids with provision for compressibility in the EHL line contact. Specifically, the Carreau model and the sinh-law model are investigated. An extensive set of numerical solutions and comparison with experiments reveal that the Carreau equation properly captures the film thickness behaviour under both rolling and sliding conditions.


Author(s):  
Mongkol Mongkolwongrojn ◽  
Khanittha Wongseedakaew ◽  
Francis E. Kennedy

This paper presents the analysis of elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) of two parallel cylinders in line contact with non-Newtonian fluids under oscillatory motion. The effects of transverse harmonic surface roughness are also investigated in the numerical simulation. The time-dependent Reynolds equation uses a power law model for viscosity. The simultaneous system of modified Reynolds equation and elasticity equation with initial conditions was solved using multi-grid multi-level method with full approximation technique. Film thickness and pressure profiles were determined for smooth and rough surfaces in the oscillatory EHL conjunctions, and the film thickness predictions were verified experimentally. For an increase in the applied load on the cylinders, the minimum film thickness calculated numerically becomes smaller. The predicted film thickness is slightly higher than the film thickness obtained experimentally, owing to cavitation that occurred in the experiments. For both hard and soft EHL contacts, the minimum film thickness under oscillatory motion is very thin near the trailing edge of the contact, especially for stiffer surfaces. The surface roughness and power law index of the non-Newtonian lubricant both have significant effects on the film thickness and pressure profile between the cylinders under oscillatory motion.


2006 ◽  
Vol 128 (3) ◽  
pp. 632-640 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Guo ◽  
M. Kaneta ◽  
J. Wang ◽  
H. Nishikawa ◽  
P. Yang

Previous studies about pure squeeze elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) have disclosed a film profile with a central dimple. Two problems about pure squeeze EHL are numerically solved in this paper. One is for a very small initial impact gap, and the other is the response of a squeezed EHL conjunction under stepwise loads. None of them result in the familiar film with a central dimple, which can be attributed to the local squeeze effect generated in the periphery region. In the first problem, it has been found that when there is adequate oil present on the plate, with a decrease in the initial impact gap, a shallow circumferential dimple occurs at the periphery of the conjunction instead of the primary central dimple presented in previous studies. Correspondingly the minimum film thickness occurs at the central region. The effect of the initial impact velocity on the periphery dimple is also investigated. In the second problem, the response of a conjunction subjected to a prescribed stepwise load is studied. When the first step load is applied, a central dimple film is produced. When the applied load is increased with a second step load, a periphery dimple appears, similar to that in the first problem. The local squeeze effect for the present numerical periphery dimple has been observed in previous experiments under similar conditions.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document