Transient elastohydrodynamic analysis of elliptical contacts. Part 3: non-Newtonian lubricant solution under isothermal and thermal conditions

Transient non-Newtonian elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) of elliptical point contacts was investigated numerically under both thermal and isothermal conditions. The multi-level technique used in Parts I and 2 of this series of papers for determining pressure and film thickness and the column-by-column relaxation technique used in Part 2 for temperature calculation were used again in this study. However, both Newtonian and non-Newtonian lubricant properties were considered, with the Ree-Eyring model being adopted in the latter case. The entrainment direction was assumed to be along the minor axis of the contact ellipse. A simplified numerical scheme for the evaluation of the equivalent shear stress and viscosity of the non-Newtonian lubricant was proposed and verified by comparing the steady-state thermal solutions without the simplification. The computing time required for a transient thermal and non-Newtonian case was typically similar to 14 h on a personal computer with a 2.8 GHz central processing unit. For a steel-steel contact, the responses of the EHL films to a transient load impulse were determined for the non-Newtonian lubricant under both isothermal and thermal conditions. The isothermal non-Newtonian results were compared with those in Part 1, and the thermal results were compared with those presented in Part 2. A similar investigation for a glass-steel contact is also reported.