Effects of surface roughness on elastohydrodynamic lubrication in elliptical contact with non-Newtonian fluids

Abstract

This paper presents the effect of surface roughness on the performance characteristics of elastohydrodynamic lubrication with non-Newtonian fluid base on Carreau viscosity model in elliptical contact. The time independent modified Reynolds equation and elastic equation were formulated for compressible fluid. Perturbation method, Newton Raphson method and full adaptive multigrid method were implemented to obtain the film pressure, film thickness profiles and friction coefficient in the contact region at various amplitude of combined surface roughness, applied loads, speeds and elliptic ratio. Simulation results show surface roughness amplitude has significant affected the film pressure in the contact region. The minimum film thickness decreases but friction coefficient increases when the combined roughness and applied loads increases. The minimum film thickness and friction coefficient both increase as the relative velocity of the ball and the plate is increase. For increasing the elliptic ratio, the minimum film thickness increases but the friction coefficient decreases. © (2012) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.