Time integration of mechanical systems with elastohydrodynamic lubricated joints using Quasi‐Newton method and projection formulations

This work deals with the efficient time integration of mechanical systems with elastohydrodynamic (EHD) lubricated joints. Two novel approaches are presented. First, a projection function is used to formulate the well‐known Swift–Stieber cavitation condition and the mass‐conservative cavitation condition of Elrod as an unconstrained problem. Based on this formulation, the pressure variable from the EHD problem is added to the dynamic equations of a multi‐body system in a monolithic manner so that cavitation is solved within a global iteration. Compared with a partitioned state‐of‐the‐art formulation, where the pressure is solved locally in a nonlinear force element, this global search reduces simulation time. Second, a Quasi‐Newton method of DeGroote is applied during time integration to solve the nonlinear relation between pressure and deformation. Compared with a simplified Newton method, the calculation of the time‐consuming parts of the Jacobian are avoided, and therefore, simulation time is reduced significantly, when the Jacobian is calculated numerically. Solution strategies with the Quasi‐Newton method are presented for the partitioned formulation as well as for the new DAE formulations with projection function. Results are given for a simulation example of a rigid shaft in a flexible bearing. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.