EHD Analysis With Distributed Structural Inertia

An elastohydrodynamic lubrication model is presented for the coupled problem of a hydrodynamic lubricating fluid in an elastic structure that includes distributed structural inertia. The problem is formulated and the governing equations solved with the finite element method for an illustrative journal bearing subject to dynamic loading. Inertia effects are demonstrated through comparisons with an existing quasi-static model. While it is true that structural inertia can be neglected without significant loss of accuracy for many journal bearing applications, the new model presented does capture effects of distributed structural inertia where such effects are important and exhibits improvements over existing methods with respect to numerical stability.