A reduced full-system finite element approach to the solution of EHL problems

Abstract

This paper presents a reduced full-system finite element solution of isothermal elastohydrodynamic (EHD) line contact problems. The proposed model is based on a full-system finite element resolution of the EHL equations: Reynolds, linear elasticity and load balance. A reduced model is proposed for the linear elasticity problem. For this, three different techniques are tested: the classical “Modal reduction” and “Ritz-vector” methods and a novel “EHL-basis” method. The reduction order in the first two appears to be insufficient and a large number of degrees of freedom is required in order to attain an acceptable solution. On the other hand, the “EHL-basis” method shows up to be much more efficient, requiring only a few degrees of freedom to compose the elastic deformation of the solid components. In addition, a comparison with the full model shows an order of magnitude cpu time gain with errors of the order of only 1‰ for the central and minimum film thicknesses.