Study On The Influence Of Slider Inclination On The Lubricating Film In Conformal Contacts

This thesis is mainly aimed at experimental and theoretical studies on influences ofthe slider inclination on the film thickness and load-carrying capacity of hydrodynamiclubrication in a slider-on-disc conformal contact. With an updated optical slider bearingtest rig which enables interference measurement of lubrication films in a conformalcontact, the interferograms were captured and the film thickness was measured for fullyflooded lubricant supply and limited lubricant supply, respectively. In the meantime,numerical simulations for the film thickness and the dimensionless load-carryingcapacity have also been carried out, and the experiments were theoretically explained.The work completed mainly includes:(1) To achieve more accurate measurement of the film thickness, an old test rig(Model FST-II) have be successfully updated.(2) Under fully flooded lubricant supply, curves of lubricating film thickness vs.slider inclination were measured for different speeds, loads, lubrication medium andslider size. The convergence ratio and the dimensionless load-carrying capacity werecalculated. The results show that in all the cases film thickness increases first and thendecreases with increasing inclination. Load-carrying capacity increases first and thendecreases with the convergence ratio K increases.(3) Under limited lubricant supply, curves of lubricating film thickness vs. sliderinclination and interferometry images were obtained for different speeds, loads,lubrication medium and lubricant volumes. The results show that the lubrication area isdivided into sufficient lubrication part (complete fringes) and unsufficient lubricationpart (fragmented fringes). The fragmented-fringe area increases with increasing speedand then remains unchanged with increasing speed. The variation of film thickness withinclination is similar to that under full lubricant supply.(4) The FORTRAN numerical solver was used to calculate film thickness andload-carrying capacity in a slider-on-disc conformal contacts. The results are wellcorrelated to the experiments. The load-carrying capacity versus the convergence ratioobtained by different lubricants shows good agreement.