Influence of pressure and temperature dependence of thermal properties of a lubricant on the behaviour of circular TEHD contacts

The aim of this paper is to study the effects of pressure and temperature dependence of a conventional lubricant's thermal properties on the behaviour of heavily loaded thermal elastohydrodynamic lubrication (TEHL) contacts. For this purpose, a typical mineral oil (Shell T9) is selected and the dependence of its transport properties on pressure and temperature is investigated. Appropriate models are then developed for these dependencies. The latter are included in a TEHL solver in order to investigate their effect on the behaviour of circular EHD contacts. The results reveal the necessity of a thermal analysis including the pressure and temperature dependence of thermal properties for a good estimation of film thicknesses and mostly traction coefficients in circular EHD contacts operating under severe conditions. Numerical results are compared with experiments, showing a very good agreement over the considered ranges. This thorough validation of a thermal EHL framework for the calculation of film thickness and friction offers a previously unavailable opportunity to investigate the effects of variations in material properties.