Effect of three-dimensional surface crack on the elastohydrodynamic lubrication performance of ellipsoid contact

The elastohydrodynamic lubrication model for the ellipsoid contact considering three-dimensional crack effect is established and solved with an under-relaxation algorithm. In doing so, the fluid field is divided into the two computation domains, in which the usual Reynolds equation and its reduced form are solved for the film pressure with the crack effect. Meanwhile, a fast Fourier transform method is adopted to accelerate the deformation calculation. Simulation model is verified. Numerical results show that the crack can cause jumps for the film pressure and film thickness. Increasing the crack length along the rolling direction and the depth at the crack's open end, and decreasing the crack tip inclined angle all result in an increment in the maximum film pressure. In addition, increasing the crack width can make the film pressure within the crack shift towards both ends of the crack width. The crack close to the contact center brings out a large film pressure.