The Elastohydrodynamic Lubrication of Heavily Loaded Contacts

An analytical solution is presented to the problem of the lubrication of highly deformed contacts, including the effect of pressure on viscosity. It is shown that the character of the lubrication process depends on the value of a single non-dimensional parameter, and that for each value of this parameter there is a unique non-dimensional value for minimum film thickness. Results are presented for general line contacts and for cylindrical contacts.