| Abstract: | The paper is devoted to the application of the early developed asymptotic approach to solution of the steady isothermal problem of elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) for heavily loaded point contacts with skewed direction of entrained lubricant. It is shown that the whole contact region can be subdivided into three subregions: the central one, which is far away from the other two regions occupied by the ends of the horseshoe‐shaped pressure/gap distribution. The central region, in turn, can be subdivided into the Hertzian region and two adjacent boundary layers — the inlet and exit zones. Moreover, in the central region in the inlet and exit zones, the EHL problem can be reduced to asymptotically valid equations identical to the ones obtained in the inlet and exit zones of heavily loaded line EHL contacts. These equations can be analytically analysed and numerically solved on the basis of the stable methods using a specific regularization approach, which were developed for lubricated line contacts. Cases of pre‐critical and over‐critical lubrication regimes are considered. The by‐product of this asymptotic analysis is an easy analytical derivation of formulas for the lubrication film thickness for pre‐critical and over‐critical starved and fully flooded lubrication regimes. The latter allows for simple analysis of the film thickness as a function of the contact eccentricity and the direction of the entrained lubricant at the inlet in the contact. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
