A comparison between elastohydrodynamic and dry hertzian line contacts with regard to their nonlinear vibration behaviour

The nonlinear dynamic behaviour of a simple system employing two different types of contact is compared: elastohydrodynamic line contact and Hertzian line contact with appropriate damping. The elastohydrodynamic problem is solved with finite elements. For the Hertzian line contact problem an analytical solution is known. It is found that for highly loaded cases Hertzian and elastohydrodynamic contacts lead to very similar frequency response curves. This means that instead of solving the computational expensive elastohydrodynamic problem the Hertzian contact can be used. However, considering weakly loaded contacts the two types of contact show very different behaviour. In particular the natural frequencies are different and the elastohydrodynamic contact exhibits rich nonlinear dynamic behaviour including jump phenomena as well as sub- and superharmonic bifurcations.