Analysis of EHL Circular Contact Start Up: Part I—Mixed Contact Model With Pressure and Film Thickness Results

Abstract

In this paper a model is presented to investigate the start up condition in elastohydrodynamic lubrication. During start up the lubrication condition falls into the mixed lubrication regime. The transition from solid contact to lubricated contact is of importance when investigating the start up process and its effects on bearing performance. The model presented uses the multigrid multilevel method to solve the lubricated region of the contact and a minimization of complementary energy approach to solve the solid contact region. The FFT method is incorporated to speed up the film thickness calculation. An iteration scheme between the lubrication and the solid contact problems is used to achieve the solution of the mixed lubrication contact problem. The results of start up with smooth surfaces are provided for the case when speed increases from zero to desired speed in one step and the case when speed is linearly increased to desired speed. The details of the transition from full solid contact to full lubricated contact in EHL start up are presented. The change of pressure and film thickness as well as contact forces and contact areas are discussed.