Paper 8: Side-Leakage Factors for a Rigid Cylinder Lubricated by an Isoviscous Fluid

Abstract
Many lubricated machine contacts can be represented by cylindrical surfaces, and some of these contacts such as gears and rolling contact bearings have been studied extensively in recent years within the developing subject of elastohydrodynamic lubrication. When high loads are carried by the contact, side leakage is of little importance, but there is little evidence to indicate the quantitative importance of side leakage when the loads are light. This question has assumed greater importance with the recent recognition that many nominally parallel surface thrust bearings rely upon thermal distortion for their effective load-carrying capacity, since the deformed shape can be approximated by a pad of cylindrical form. In this paper solutions of the Reynolds equation are presented for the geometry of a cylinder near a plane lubricated by an isoviscous fluid. The resulting pressure distribution has been integrated to yield normal and tangential surface force components and the results are presented in the form of side-leakage factors to be used with the Martin solution for an infinite cylinder. The approximate ‘short-cylinder’ theory is presented and compared with the full computer solutions. The results are applied to two lubricated contact situations.

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