A General Approximate Solution For Film Thickness For a Lubricated Elastic Cylindrical Line Contact Involving a Compliant Layer On a Rigid Substrate Under Entraining Motion

A simple minimum film thickness formulae has been derived for a general contact system involving a compliant layer when the ratio of the contact half width to the layer thickness is greater than about 2. Both bonded and unbonded contacts have been considered and Poisson's ratio of the compliant layer has been assumed to be between 0 and 0.5. Minimum film thickness charts have been presented for these contacts as a function of the ratio of the half contact width to the layer thickness and Poisson's ratio. Good agreement has been demonstrated between the present simple analysis and the full numerical solution under various contact conditions.