Elastohydrodynamic Lubrication of Elliptical Contact Considering Effect of Inertia of Lubrication Film

An elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) model of the elliptical contact considering the lubrication film inertia was proposed based on the Navier-Stokes equation considering the inertia and continuity equation, and then the film inertia effect on the EHL performance of the elliptical contact was studied. In doing so, the deformation and proposed model were solved, respectively, with a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) and composite direct iteration method. The numerical results show that with the consideration of the film inertia effect, the secondary pressure spike of the lubrication film increased, and the lubricant velocity became smaller and the lubricant reflow became more obvious in the inlet. The inertia also led to an increment in the film thickness, of which the center film thickness increased up to 5.14% when the load increased from 300 to 700 N. The experimental result also showed that the center film thickness considering the inertia effect was close to the experimental result.