Use of computational fluid dynamics in hydrodynamic lubrication

Abstract

This paper demonstrates the suitability of using computational fluid dynamics software for solving steady state hydrodynamic lubrication problems pertaining to slider bearings, step bearings, journal bearings and squeeze-film dampers under conditions of constant unidirectional or rotating loading. The relevance of the inertia and viscous terms which are neglected in the derivation of the Reynolds equation are briefly investigated for the above bearing and damper configurations and it is shown that the neglected viscous terms have negligible effect whereas the inertia effect predictions agree reasonably well with those reported in the literature.