The role of tribology and non-conformal contacts in machine elements life (G. Morales-Espejel, SKF & Imperial College London)

The presentation will cover analytical methods for the modelling of lubrication with smooth surfaces in heavily loaded lubricated non-conformal contacts. This is in the so-called elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) regime. The physical and mathematical nature of the pressure spike will be discussed. The extension of these methods to time dependent problems, including the squeeze term in the Reynolds equation will be included. Semi-analytical methods of the type known as “rapid” for sinusoidal and general roughness in micro-EHL will be presented, including their extension to mixed lubrication via the use of FFT approaches. After this extensive coverage of the lubrication phenomenon in non-conformal contacts, different damaging surface modes will be discussed, e.g. mild wear, surface distress and frictional heating. Techniques for the modelling of these surface damage modes will be covered. Finally, it will be presented a novel approach for the integral modelling of the life of machine elements ....