Numerical Simulation of Pure Impact Elastohydrodynamic Lubrication in Finite-Length Line Contacts

Abstract Impact loads significantly affect lubrication and operating reliability in crucial engineering applications such as gears and rolling bearings. To address the shortage of pure impact investigations on finite-length line contacts, this paper exhibits a two-dimensional elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) model of pure impact. Using the multigrid multiintegration method for elastic deformation analysis and the multigrid method for solving the transient Reynolds equation, the authors investigate the effects of impact velocity and initial impact gap on contact properties. The findings show that the effect of increasing the initial impact gap on pure impact EHL can be referenced to the effect of transitioning from starved lubrication to fully lubricated on rolling EHL. These insights provide some theoretical support for engineering applications.