Elastohydrodynamic Lubrication with Oil Droplets

In oil–air lubrication, lubricants are supplied in the form of oil droplets to tribo-pairs. Numerical work has been carried out to investigate transient EHL characteristics when a series of oil droplets are entrained along the center line of the contact zone. Results show that the spacing distance between oil droplets is an important parameter for continuous EHL film formation. For oil droplets with the same volume, the effective lubrication time increases first and then decreases as the droplet distance increases. An optimum droplet distance can be found for the maximum effective lubrication time with continuous EHL films. Moreover, entrainment speed, lubricant viscosity and oil/solid interface can also affect the effective lubrication time significantly and change the optimum droplet distance accordingly. Numerical results showed a close correlation to the experiments. This study is useful to basic understanding of lubrication by limited lubricant supply.