EHL of circular contacts lubricating with mixture of two lubricants

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and discuss the coupled effects of surface roughness and flow rheology for a homogeneous mixture of Newtonian base oil and power law fluids on the performance of elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) circular contact problems.

Design/methodology/approach

The average flow model is adapted for the interaction of the flow rheology of lubricant and surface roughness. The average Reynolds type equation (ARTE) and the related flow factors (which describes the coupled effects of surface roughness and flow rheology of a mixture), the viscosity‐pressure and density‐pressure relations equations, the elastic deformation equation, and the force balance equation are then solved simultaneously. The multilevel multi‐integration algorithm and Gauss‐Seidel iteration method are utilized to calculate the film thickness and pressure distributions of the EHL circular contact problems effectively.

Findings

The effects of volume fraction, flow index of power law fluid, and surface roughness parameters (Peklenik number, standard deviation of composite surface roughness) on the film thickness and pressure distributions are discussed. The results show that the effects of surface roughness should be considered especially in EHL contact problems.

Originality/value

The EHL of circular contacts lubricating with mixture of two lubricants is first analyzed. The coupling effects of surface roughness and flow rheology of mixture (a Newtonian fluid and a power‐law fluid) on the EHL performance are first discussed in this paper.

Citation

Chu, L., Li, W., Chang, Y. and Hsu, H. (2010), "EHL of circular contacts lubricating with mixture of two lubricants", Industrial Lubrication and Tribology, Vol. 62 No. 2, pp. 83-90. https://doi.org/10.1108/00368791011025629