The behaviour of low-amplitude surface roughness under line contacts

A method of analysis is presented for low-amplitude roughness in line conta cts. The technique deals with two-dimensional sinusoidal profiles where the roughness may be moving relative to the contact and shows that the non-lin ear two-dimensional time-varying problem can be reduced to the solution of a linear one-dimensional steady state equation. This removes many of the co mputational problems associated with rough elastohydrodynamic lubrication a nd enables solutions for a wide variety of operating conditions and surface profiles to be obtained rapidly. A number of examples are given to illustr ate the method.