| Abstract: | A mathematical model for couple stress fluid is presented to analyse the separation flow of a fully flooded sphere from a flat under the condition of constant load. Assuming the lubricant between the sphere and the flat to contain additives, the couple stress effect, presented by the characteristic length of the additives, has been considered to account for the non‐Newtonian behaviour. In addition, the effect of the sphere inertia on accelerating the separation process has been considered. Compared with the Newtonian fluid case, the results of the numerical solution indicated that the separation time increases with increasing the characteristic length of the additives. It was also found that the additive characteristic length has negligible effect on the thickness of the lubricant film at the separation point. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
