Quantitative Compressibility Effects in Thermal Elastohydrodynamic Circular Contacts

Abstract

This paper investigates the effects of lubricant compressibility on the film-forming performance of thermal elastohydrodynamic lubricated (EHL) circular contacts. Numerical film thickness predictions using the classical Dowson and Higginson relationship are compared to those that would be obtained using a more realistic compressibility model, all other parameters kept unchanged. This allows an isolation of the realistic compressibility effects on the film-forming performance. For realistic predictions, the authors consider two model liquids from the 1953 report of the ASME Research Committee on Lubrication, the most and the least compressible. The compressibility of these liquids is modeled using the Tait equation of state (EoS) while all other transport properties are kept unchanged for the sake of isolating compressibility effects. In addition, the same typical generalized-Newtonian behavior is assumed for both model liquids. The results reconfirm the well-known observations that minimum film thickness is very little affected by lubricant compressibility while central film thickness decreases linearly with the increase in volume compression of the lubricant. It is also observed that the relative errors on central film thicknesses induced by the use of the Dowson and Higginson relationship for compressibility increase with load and temperature and are very little affected by mean entrainment speed. Compressibility is shown to be a significant source of error in film-derived measurements of pressure-viscosity coefficients especially at high temperature. The thermodynamic scaling that provides an accurate and consistent framework for the correlation of the thermophysical properties of liquids with temperature and pressure requires an accurate equation of state. In brief, this paper highlights the importance of using realistic transport properties modeling based on thermodynamic scaling for an accurate numerical prediction of the performance of EHL contacts.