The effect of two-sided roughness in rolling/sliding EHL line contacts

• In most theoretical studies carried out to date on the effect of surface roughness in elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) one surface is considered smooth and one as being rough. In real tribological contacts however, both surfaces normally have similar roughness heights. When modelling a rolling contact it is possible to simply sum the roughness of the two contact surfaces but in a sliding EHL contact, a continuously changing effective surface roughness occurs. The aim of this work was to investigate the influence of elementary surface features such as dents and ridges on the film thickness and pressure. This was done numerically using transient non-Newtonian simulations of an EHL line contact using a coupled smoother combined with a multilevel technique. Four different "overtaking" phenomena were investigated; ridge-ridge, dent-ridge, ridge-dent, and dent-dent. It was shown that the minimum film-thickness produced by a ridge is further reduced in a dent-ridge overtaking event. The squeeze effect seen in the ridge-ridge case resulted in large deformations and film-thickness heights comparable to the corresponding smooth case just before the overtaking event occurred. These local effects arising from simulating two-sided roughness were compared to simulations using a traditional "one-sided rough surface contacting a perfectly smooth surface.".

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Tribologi (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Tribology (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Maskinelement

Machine Elements

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)