Mixed Lubrication Analyses by a Macro-Micro Approach and a Full-Scale Mixed EHL Model

Abstract

This paper presents an improvement of a simplified approach, namely, the macro-micro approach, used to model the mixed elastohydrodynamic lubrication problems in counterformal contacts, and its comparison with Zhu and Hu’s full-scale mixed-EHL model. In this approach, Patir and Cheng’s average flow model is employed to obtain the distribution of piecewise average pressure. A contact-embedment method that incorporates the detail of asperity contact pressure into the overall pressure distribution is utilized to reveal the severity of surface interaction. Numerical experiments are conducted, and the results are compared with those obtained by means of the full-scale mixed-EHL. The regime of the application of this macro-micro approach is explored.