Contributed by the Tribology Division for publication in the ASME JOURNAL OF TRIBOLOGY. Manuscript received by the Tribology Division August 12, 2003; revised manuscript received April 14, 2004. Review conducted by: M. R. Lovell.
Liquid lubricants in elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) are subjected to high pressures of the magnitude of Under these high pressures, the lubricants in room temperatures are usually in the glassy state behaving as amorphous solids. Similar to the polymers, the lubricants exhibit elastic or visco-elastic behavior under low-shear-stress loading and plastic or visco-plastic behavior with high-shear stresses. Recent laboratory experiments have revealed two types of localized shear responses that can take place in the lubricant bulk. The localized shear may be active in the EHL film and may play a significant role in the responses exhibited by the contact conjunction. A typical example is the EHL traction. This...
