FINITE-ELEMENT SYSTEM APPROACH TO EHL OF ELLIPTIC CONTACTS - PART I -ISOTHERMAL CIRCULAR NON-NEWTONIAN FORMULATION

The column continuity equation is used in formulating a modified Reyno lds equation for elastohydrodynamic lubrication of elliptical contacts . A finite element method (FEM), here the Galerkin weighting method wi th isoparametric Q9 elements, is used to discretize the weak form of t he Reynolds equation. In addition to the nodal pressures and the offse t film thickness, the locations of the two-dimensional irregular free boundary are explicitly solved for by simultaneously forcing the essen tial and the natural Reynolds boundary conditions. Newton-Raphson's it erations with a user-. friendly yet efficient meshless scheme (i.e., a utomatic meshing-remeshing) are finally applied to solve these equatio ns. A decoupled circular non-Newtonian fluid model is adapted in a way to illustrate the implementation of this new solution method. Extensi ve results will be given in Part II.