Numerical evaluation of pressure from experimentally measured film thickness in EHL point contact

This paper is concerned with elastohydrodynamic lubrication, especially the determination of lubricant film thickness and contact pressure within a point contact of friction surfaces of machine parts. A new solution technique for numerical determination of contact pressure is introduced. The direct measurement of contact pressure is very difficult. Hence, input data of lubricant film thickness obtained from the experiment based on colorimetric interferometry are used for the calculation of pressure using the inverse elasticity theory. The algorithm is enhanced by convolution in order to increase calculation speed. The approach described in this contribution gives reliable results on smooth contact and in the future, it will be extended to enable the study of contact of friction surfaces with asperities. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.