Thermal Effects in Elliptical Large Size Spinning Contacts

Jean David Wheeler (1) , Nicolas Fillot (1) , David Philippon (1) , Guillermo E. Morales-Espejel (2, 1) , Philippe Vergne (1)

1 TMI - Tribologie et Mécanique des Interfaces
2 SKF-ERC

This work aims to improve our understanding of the lubrication of the rib-roller end contacts found in tapered roller bearings, more specifically to analyze the physical mechanisms involved in elastohydrodynamic large-size spinning contacts. A non-Newtonian thermal solver has been developed to model these features and has provided significant and quantitative results (Doki-Thonon2013) for circular contacts. These results were confirmed by a good agreement with experiments obtained from the Tribogyr test-rig (Dormois2009). New developments made it possible now to model elliptical contacts and to underline their distinctive aspects. One may notice that the contact semi-axes ratio variation influences the isothermal contact (Nijenbanning1994), but it also affects the rheology through the typical kinematic: the shear stress, and consequently the temperature, are globally increased. These effects induce a trend of film thickness reduction which might lead to partial solid-solid contact.

Mots clés: large-size spinning contact; elliptical contact; thermal effects; film thickness

Domaines: Autre

Jean David Wheeler, Nicolas Fillot, David Philippon, Guillermo E. Morales-Espejel, Philippe Vergne. Thermal Effects in Elliptical Large Size Spinning Contacts. Tribology Frontiers Conference, Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers, Oct 2014, Chicago, United States. ⟨hal-01079494⟩