ADVANCED MULTILEVEL SOLUTION FOR ELASTOHYDRODYNAMIC LUBRICATION CIRCULAR CONTACT PROBLEM

This paper describes an advanced multilevel solver for the elastohydro dynamic lubrication (EHL) circular contact problems. This advanced sol ver combines direct iteration, multigrid, Newton-Raphson, Gauss-Seidel iteration, and multilevel multi-integration methods into one working environment. Since the standard central difference formulas are employ ed to approximate the Reynolds equation, accurate solutions can be obt ained with smaller number of grid points than previous work for a wide range of loads. Results show that this algorithm solving the steady s tate circular contact problem in O(n ln n) operations for a wide range of loads, speeds, and materials parameters. Effects of dimensionless load, dimensionless speed, and dimensionless materials parameter on th e minimum film thickness are investigated. Correlation formula of mini mum film thickness is also derived for a wide range of loads, speeds, and materials parameters.