Energy dissipation in EHL Film in Gear Lubrication

A characterization of the energy dissipation of the lubricant film between mating teeth in gear pairs is proposed. The film fluid is modeled using the fully flooded elastohydrodynamical point contact and the solution is found by means of a numerical multilevel solver. Some comparison with other solutions proposed in the literature for the line contact problem are drawn to validate the proposed approach. In order to understand the effect of the lubricant film on the vibration of the gear pair, it is important to describe both the stiffness of the film and the viscous energy dissipation: in the present paper, some initial results about this problem are presented.