The application of roughness model to a soft EHL contact

Abstract

The study focuses on the development of a numerical model to explore the impact of surface roughness in soft rolling nip contacts, including representation of a real surface. The solution of the governing equations required the application of a multigridding technique to capture the details of the fluid flow within the roughness wavelengths and a minimum number of fluid nodes per wavelength were established. In the case studies, two extreme roughness profiles were considered, longitudinal and circumferential. The longitudinal roughness had a significant impact on nip pressures and pumping capacity, the latter being determined by the minimum film thickness in the nip. The circumferential roughness was found to have a localised effect on film pressure, but only a very small impact on the film thickness profile. The consequent effect on pumping capacity was small.

Citation

Bohan, M.F.J., Claypole, T.C. and Gethin, D.T. (2002), "The application of roughness model to a soft EHL contact", International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 356-374. https://doi.org/10.1108/09615530210433260