The Influence of Fluid Rheology on the Performance of Traction Drives

The performance of traction drives depends to a large extent on the rheological properties of the fluid in the EHL contact. Through the use of the recently proposed J + T constitutive equation, the influence of elastic effects in the fluids is examined. The results were compared with those obtained from conventional analysis. It is shown that essentially three regions of influence exist. For small values of spin and side slip the elastic effects in the fluid dominate and no consideration of the spin and side slip is required. At higher values of spin and side slip the elastic effect still exists but slip is influenced by the spin and slide slip. At still higher values of side slip and spin, the elastic effects in the fluid may be neglected. The various boundaries of the regions of influence depend on the aspect ratio of the contact.