Inertia Effects on Inclined Slider Bearings Lubricated by a Couple Stress Fluid

This article deals with a numerical investigation of fluid inertia effects on inclined slider bearings lubricated by couple stress fluids. Convective inertial forces are considered in the film fluid. A reduced version of the Navier-Stokes equations is thus derived. The non-Newtonian couple stress behavior of the lubricant is described based on the microcontinuum Stokes theory. The governing partial differential equations are discretized by finite differences based on boundary layer–type equations. The resulting algebraic equations are solved using a Gauss-Seidel method. Compared to the case of the non-inertia Newtonian lubricant, the couple effects of fluid inertia forces and non-Newtonian couple stresses provide a significant improvement in slider bearing load capacity.