NEW SOLUTIONS FOR LUBRICANT VISCOSITYAND TEMPERATURE VARIATIONS ACROSS THE THIN FILM ONARBITRARY SLIDING BEARING SURFACES

The aim of this paper is to analyse the changes in apparent dynamic viscosity and temperature across any thinnon-Newtonian lubricating liquid layer, and determine the influence of such variations on the hydrodynamicpressure and load-carrying capacity for arbitrary curvilinear monotone or non-monotone rotational and nonrotationalsliding bearing surfaces.This requires determining particular semi-analytical solutions of a strongly non-linear, second-order partialdifferential system of five equations with variable coefficients in curvilinear coordinates, and imposingproper curvilinear boundary conditions on it. After initial numerical calculations for any bearing surface,especially with a conical or spherical shape, the changes in temperature and viscosity across the thickness ofthe lubricating film change the load-carrying capacity by nearly 20 per cent compared to the results obtainedfrom classic calculations in the contemporary scientific literature, where the temperature and oil dynamicviscosity are assumed constant across the film thickness.