Search

The last fifty years have seen tremendous advances in the field of thin film lubrication. This is particularly true of steady-state Elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) where the accurate measurement of film thickness combined with advanced numerical modelling methods has been very successful. However there are still many challenges to be faced in areas of practical importance for example transient operation, rough surfaces, lubricant failure and two-phase fluids. Such systems present many experimental problems and it is often difficult to obtain detailed measurements of film formation under such conditions. This insight is essential if we are to develop physically realistic models to describe these processes and predict lubrication performance. The aim of this paper is to report on the continued development of experimental methods to study thin film lubrication and to compare the results from this work to current models. The paper will also discuss the limitations of the existing experimental and modeling capabilities and the new challenges to be tackled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors have previously examined the effect of surface roughness in line and point EHL contacts and have shown that it is the ratio of the wavelength to the inlet pressure sweep that determines the degree of roughness attenuation under the contact. Because of this a single curve can be used to determine the attenuation for all contacts. However this work was carried out for fully flooded contacts and many practical contacts operate under conditions of starved lubrication. This paper extends the analysis to this type of conjunction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]