Compressible elastohydrodynamic lubrication of rolling and sliding contacts with a power law fluid

This paper presents a theoretical solution for compressible elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) using power law fluids. The performance characteristics of EHL line contacts are investigated for the power law index n in the range from 0.8 to 1.2 and the slide-toroll ratio in the range from 0.1 to 1.9. Numerical results show that, with increase in the power law index n, the pressure spike moves toward the centre of contact and the location of the cavitation moves away from the centre of contact for compressible fluids. As the slide-to-roll ratio increases, the minimum film thickness becomes thin when n < 1 and conversely becomes thick when n > 1. The sliding friction coefficient increases as the slide-to-roll ratio increases for all power law indices n.