The Elastohydrodynamic Problem Expressed in Terms of Extended Variational Formulation

The elastohydrodynamic problem is revisited in terms of an extended variational formulation, where the corresponding functional exhibits minimum properties in the solution neighborhood. Such features are exploited in the development of a relaxation-type solver. The numerical results indicate the the convergence rate of the proposed relaxation scheme becomes increasingly poor as the solution of the elastohydrodynamic problem is approached. A polyalgorithm based on a combination between relaxation-type and Newton-type schemes is proposed. The numerical experiments referred to various sealing profiles of increasing foundation compliance show that the proposed procedure is particularly advantageous in the case of soft lubricated contacts.