Power law fluid model incorporated into elastohydrodynamic lubrication theory of line contact

An algorithm is developed for the study of the infinitely long slider bearing in general form, considering the lubricant to be an incompressible power law fluid in isothermal conditions. The earlier works on this topic were considered by taking cavitation boundary conditions when a cylinder moves over a plane lubricated with a power law fluid and in EHL solution in a particular case, viz. pure rolling of a cylinder over an identical cylinder. We have considered a general solution including elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) for different values of power law exponent. Deviation of values of central film thickness for different values of power law exponent from those for Newtonian lubricants are presented. The effects of the power law exponent on the central film thickness, minimum film thickness and load capacity are analysed. The effects of rolling and sliding velocities of contact surfaces are also analysed in terms of an equivalent radius of a cylinder moving over a moving plane. Film shapes and pressure distributions are also calculated numerically and presented graphically for various values of central film thickness considered in this paper. A number of observations obtained here with pseudoplastic nature of lubricants are in good agreement with the experimental results. The theoretical observations suggest the behaviour of common lubricants as pseudoplastic fluids in the cases of slowly moving surfaces and motion under heavy load. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd