New Models in the Theory of the Hydrodynamic Lubrication of Rough Surfaces

Abstract

Recent advances in mathematical analysis of problems described by several small parameters equations are used to revisit the general roughness problem. In this paper, we put forward a new qualitative study of a thin film flow with a rapidly varying gap. Using an asymptotic analysis of the three-dimensional Stokes system we obtain a family of new generalized Reynolds equations. We are led to distinguish three different cases in which the periodic roughness wavelength is on the order of, greater or shorter than the mean thickness of the gap.