On the linear finite element analysis of fully-coupled point contact elastohydrodynamic lubrication problems

The fully coupled approach for the solution of elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) point contact problems requires the numerical solution of the elasticity problem on a large 3D domain. A sufficiently fine computational mesh is required to obtain the elastic deformation solution to the necessary accuracy, and hence a sufficiently accurate EHL point contact solution. This paper discusses the accuracy of an EHL point contact solution over different finite element meshes. We present a family of efficient 3D meshes which can be used to calculate accurate EHL point contact solutions at a minimal computational cost. This paper also illustrates the fact that the unstructured hierarchical meshes can lead to a poor quality EHL solution unless an appropriate post-processing, smoothing, technique is applied.