On the microelastohydrodynamic lubrication of an elastomeric bonded layer

A numerical solution to the line EHL problem of an incompressible elastic layer with sinusoidal roughness and attached firmly (bonded) to a rigid substrate is presented. A modified version of the numerical method developed by the author for smooth layered contacts is used. Effects of the layer thickness, elasticity, roughness amplitude, wavelength and phase angle parameters on the obtained results are considered. When the layer becomes thin (contact width is significantly larger than the layer thickness) a formula for the predication of the minimum film thickness was derived using the first order approximation. The formula showed similar features to the numerical data.