Elastohydrodynamic lubrication of a circular point contact for a compliant layered surface bonded to a rigid substrate Part 1: Theoretical formulation and numerical method

Abstract

A full numerical analysis of the elastohydrodynamic lubrication problem of a circular point contact involving a compliant layered surface firmly bonded to a rigid substrate is reported in the present study. The Reynolds equation has been solved simultaneously with the full elasticity equation for the layered bearing surface under entraining motion, using the Newton-Raphson method. The theoretical formulation and the numerical method are presented in the present paper (Part 1), together with the comparison of the predicted minimum and central film thickness between the present solution when the contact radius is much smaller than the layer thickness and the results for a semi-infinite solid reported in the literature.