Simulation of Plasto-Elastohydrodynamic Lubrication in a Rolling Contact

Surface plastic deformation due to contact (lubricated or dry) widely exists in many mechanical components, as subsurface stress caused by high-pressure concentrated in the contact zone often exceeds the material yielding limit, and the plastic strain accumulates when the load is increased and/or repeatedly applied to the surface in a rolling contact. However, previous plasto-elastohydrodynamic lubrication (PEHL) studies were mainly for the preliminary case of having a rigid ball (or roller) rotating on a stationary elastic–plastic flat with a fixed contact center, for which the numerical simulation is relatively simple. This paper presents an efficient method for simulating PEHL in a rolling contact. The von Mises yield criteria are used for determining the plastic zone, and the total computation domain is discretized into a number of cuboidal elements underneath the contacting surface, each one is considered as a cuboid with uniform plastic strain inside. The residual stress and surface plastic deformation resulted from the plastic strain can be solved as a half-space eigenstrain–eigenstress problem. A combination of three-dimensional (3D) and two-dimensional (2D) discrete convolution and fast Fourier transform (DC-FFT) techniques is used for accelerating the computation. It is observed that if a rigid ball rolls on an elastic–plastic surface, the characteristics of PEHL lubricant film thickness and pressure distribution are different from those of PEHL in the preliminary cases previously investigated. It is also found that with the increase of rolling cycles, the increment of plastic strain accumulation gradually approaches a stable value or drops down to zero, determined by the applied load and the material hardening properties, eventually causing a groove along the rolling direction. Simulation results for different material hardening properties are also compared to reveal the effect of body materials on the PEHL behaviors.