Lubricant Film Thickness in Rough Surface, Mixed Elastohydrodynamic Contact

A spacer layer imaging method has been employed to map lubricant film thickness in very thin film, rough surface, rolling elastohydrodynamic (EHD) contacts. A series of model roughnesses have been produced by depositing tiny ridges and bumps on a steel ball surface and the influence of these features on film thickness has been investigated at a range of rolling speeds. It has been shown that all the model surface features studied form speed-dependent, micro-EHD lubricating films, but the detailed shape and thickness of these films depends upon the geometry of the feature and the rolling speed. All model surface features also produce a net increase in mean film thickness, compared to the smooth surface, under operating conditions where the film thickness is less than the out-of-contact height of the surface feature studied. For a real, random, rough surface, however, mean film thickness is less than the smooth surface case. The film thickness mapping technique has also been used to measure the effective roughness of surfaces in lubricated contact. This shows that surfaces based on 2-D array of tiny circular bumps become rougher as the rolling speed and thus film thickness increases. However, real, rough surfaces appear to show a decrease of in-contact roughness with increasing rolling speed.