Transient Multi-Level Elastohydrodynamic Point Contact Algorithm Experimental Validation 2010-36-0088

One of the great challenges of engineering teams nowadays is to overcome long and costly project experimentation phases. One effective way of decreasing such project demands is to come up with a firsthand prototype with high success probability. In order to do so, the project team should rely on robust numerical models, which can represent most of the real-life product behaviors, for instance system dynamics. For rolling element bearings, such dynamic models have to consider the dynamic interactions between its components, i.e., rolling elements and raceways. The only vibration transmitting points on rolling element bearings are the lubricated contacts. Therefore, in order to represent the full bearing dynamic behavior on a numerical model, an efficient transient contact model, which depicts the actual contact behavior, is fundamental. The primary goal of this work is to verify and validate a transient model for the elastohydrodynamic point contact, against bibliographical experimental results. A finite difference multi-level model is used to simulate the contact, taking into consideration the transient effects of the lubricant film. The static response is directly compared to the equilibrium position of the experimental data, by means of the measured center film thickness and pseudointerferometry plots. Using a ramp load on the model, the transient effect present on the experimental data can also be compared to the obtained simulation results, demonstrating the model validity. Also, some previous literature results are verified through the present algorithm.