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Most of the rolling bearings work under starvation conditions. The quantitative measurement of the oil layer may provide a new perspective on the rolling bearing lubrication. In this research, the laser-induced fluorescence technique was utilized to measure the oil layer thickness out of the contact on a modified angular contact ball-bearing testing apparatus. The forms of oil supply for the ball-outer-ring contact at various speeds were studied, as well as the influences of centrifugal forces.

Elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) analysis in finite line contacts is usually modeled by a finite-length roller contacting with a half-space, which ignores effect of the two free boundaries existing in many applications such as gears or roller bearings. This paper presents a semi-analytical method, involving the overlapping method and matrix formation, for EHL analysis in the finite line contact problem to consider the effect of two free end surfaces. Three half-spaces with mirrored loads to be solved are overlapped to cancel out the stresses at expected surfaces, and three matrices can be obtained and reused for the same finite-length space. The isothermal Reynolds equation is solved to obtain the pressure distribution and the fast Fourier transform (FFT) is used to speed up the elastic deformation and stress related calculation. Different line contact situations, including straight rollers, tapered rollers, and Lundberg profile rollers, are discussed to explore the effect of free end surfaces.

Oil–air lubrication is widely used in the high-speed rotary machines; the oil is usually in the form of discrete droplets. The lubrication behavior of the oil droplet is rarely investigated. This paper investigates the effect of the oil droplet on lubrication performance based on the developed transient lubrication model with consideration of starvation conditions. The oil droplet is modeled as spherical segment with different heights, base radius, and positions, which will change the inlet oil supply conditions. The results show that the oil droplet with large size can generate thick oil film which is close to the one in fully flooded condition and can remain long time; the position of the oil droplet entering the contact region also has significant effect on the lubrication performance.

The objective of the present work is to investigate experimentally and numerically the influences of surface roughness, produced by typical machining processes, on friction performances in lubricated-point contacts. Prior to the full experimental investigation, a series of tests had been conducted to examine the experimental errors, resulting from repeated tests on the same specimen but at different tracks, with different amounts of lubricant supply, or after the sample reinstallation. Then, the effects of amplitude and texture of surface roughness on friction behavior are investigated in rotational and reciprocal-mode tests, respectively. The measured friction, averaged over the repeated tests and plotted as a function of sliding speed, shows Stribeck-type curves, which manifest the transition from full-film, mixed, to boundary lubrication. Results show that the roughness amplitude imposes a strong influence on the magnificence of friction and the route of lubrication transition. It is also observed that transverse roughness would give rise to a smaller friction coefficient than the longitudinal one under the same operating conditions. Moreover, the deterministic numerical solution of mixed lubrication has been extended to evaluate friction between rough surfaces over a wide range of lubrication regimes. The numerical simulation results are compared and agree very well with experiments. DOI: 10.1115/1.2768081

Finite-length line contact conditions, existing in applications such as gears or roller bearings, lead to subsurface stress distribution influenced by the free boundaries. This paper presents a semi-analytical method (SAM) for the finite-length line contact problem, based on the overlapping concept and matrix formation, to consider the effect of two free-end surfaces. In order to obtain two free surfaces, three half-spaces with mirrored loads to be solved are overlapped to cancel out the stresses at expected surfaces. The error introduced by this method is analyzed and proven to be negligible. The conjugate gradient method (CGM) is used to solve the pressure distribution, and the fast Fourier transform (FFT) is used to speed up the elastic deformation and stress-related calculation. The model is verified by finite element method (FEM) and shows a high conformity and efficiency. Besides, the line contact situations are discussed to explore the effect of free surfaces.

This paper develops an analytical model to investigate the effect of inhomogeneity in races on the dynamic behaviors of rolling bearing. The governing differential equations are obtained based on the Hertz contact theory and bearing kinematic equations with the centrifugal force and frictions considered. The surface disturbed displacement caused by inhomogeneities is obtained by the semi-analytical method (SAM) and treated as local surface defect in equations of motion through load–deformation relation. For the first time, the effect of material inhomogeneity on dynamics of rolling bearing is explored. The result shows that the inhomogeneity can make the system motion more complicated. The inhomogeneity in the inner race has a greater influence than in the outer race.

A numerical analysis on the factors affecting the hydrodynamic performance for parallel surfaces with microtextures is presented in this paper. The semianalytical method and fast Fourier transform technique are implemented in the analysis. The numerical procedure is validated by comparing the results from the present model with the analytical solutions for the lubrication problem in an infinitewide sliding bearing with step-shaped textures. The numerical results show that the hydrodynamic performance can be greatly affected by the factors, such as the boundary conditions, cavitation pressure, microtextures, surface deformation, etc. This study can be of a great help for better understanding the mechanism of hydrodynamic pressure generated between parallel surfaces and realistically evaluating the improvement of tribological performance caused by textures. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4026060]

It has been recognized that purposefully designed surface texturing can contribute to the improvement of tribological performance of elements and friction reduction. However, its optimal parameters may depend on the operating conditions. This paper investigated the effect of a triangle-shaped dimples array on the tribological performance of the lubricated point-contacts under different lubrication regimes, based on the rotational sliding experiment of a patterned steel disk against smooth steel balls. The dimples arrays were produced by laser process and characterized by the 3D profilometer. A series of tests were conducted with different dimple parameters including depth, coverage ratio, size, and direction. Stribecklike curves were obtained to depict the transition of lubrication regimes, and the electrical contact resistance was utilized to qualitatively characterize the lubrication status. The test results showed that the dimples arrays with different sizes, depths and coverage ratios had a distinct effect on the friction behaviors. Compared with the nontextured surfaces, when the dimple depth decreased from 30μm to zero with fixed coverage ratio and size, the friction coefficient firstly decreased, and then increased. The friction coefficient finally approached that of the nontextured surface, during which the lowest value appeared at the dimple depth of approximately 10∼15μm. The coverage ratio of texture showed the similar effect on the friction coefficient. Usually, the coverage ratio of approximately 10% resulted in the lowest friction coefficient. The dimple size and direction also had obvious effects on the friction coefficient. Thus, it can be concluded that there exists a set of optimal values for the dimple depth, coverage ratio, size, and direction to realize the friction reduction.

A numerical approach for solving the fretting contact on coated or layered materials, with consideration of loading history, is presented in the paper. The fretting problem was solved by using a semi-analytical method (SAM), in which analytical relations between a unit stress and corresponding displacements or stresses were obtained through the use of the Papkovich–Neuber potentials. Conjugate gradient method (CGM) and fast Fourier transform (FFT) technique were employed to increase the solution speed. The algorithm was very effective since the meshes applied to the positions were just in the contact areas of interest, which saves the computing time. The fretting contact of coated materials was studied and the effects of stick-slip behaviors were analyzed. Results show that the coupled effects between the shear tractions and the pressure make the contact behaviors quite different with the solutions from same materials. The solutions depend on the path or history of the loading process when the ball is under dynamic loads, and the contact behaviors rely on the degree of dissimilarity of material properties.

An elastic contact model for three-dimensional layered or coated materials under coupled normal and tangential loads, with consideration of partial slip effects, has been developed in this paper. The response functions for calculating the displacements and stresses were determined in the frequency domain by using the Papkovich–Neuber potentials. The partial slip contact problem was solved by a numerical procedure based on the conjugate Gradient method and fast Fourier transform technique. The contact pressure, surface shear tractions, stick ratios, rigid body displacements, and subsurface stresses are analyzed under different conditions with variations in the material properties and coating thickness. Results show that stiffer coatings tend to decrease the stick ratios and the rigid ball tangential displacements in comparison to those with compliant coatings under the same contact conditions. For stiffer coatings, the values of the von Mises stress and compressive surface stress increase and the positions of maximum von Mises stress move up to the surface; meanwhile, the distributions of the compressive stress become asymmetric due to the action of the tangential load.

This paper discussed the computational accuracy of rough-surface point-contact isothermal elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) analysis by investigating the effects of differential scheme, viscosity-pressure, and shear-thinning models. An EHL experiment with multitransverse ridges was employed as simulated target. Four differential schemes, including the combined and the separate first-order and second-order backward schemes, were investigated. It is found that the separate second-order backward scheme offers the best results based on the comparison with the experimental data, with which two roughness derivatives may be fully or partially canceled each other; thus, the discretization error induced by roughness can be reduced. The consistency of differential schemes is an important issue for the separate schemes. The Yasutomi free-volume viscosity-pressure model and the Eyring rheological model are found to yield the numerical simulations the closest to experimental results.