The Application of Newton-Raphson Method to Thermal Elastohydrodynamic Lubrication of Line Contacts

The Newton-Raphson method was applied to solve the thermal EHD lubrication model of line contacts. By accounting for thermal effects in the Newton-Raphson scheme, a very stable numerical approach was obtained. Two models with viscosity constant and variable across the oil film were developed. The results under extremely heavy conditions of dimensionless load W = 52 * 10⁻⁵ (p_H = 2 GPa) and dimensionless rolling velocity U = 20 * 10⁻¹¹ are presented. They show that even for pure rolling, but under heavy load and high rolling velocity conditions, the thermal effects significantly reduce the minimum film thickness. The distributions of pressure, film thickness, and temperature for two rolling velocities and various loads are presented. They indicate that under high rolling velocity conditions the thermal effects have a strong influence on a pressure spike.