NASA NTRS1976
The influence of lubricant starvation on minimum film thickness was investigated by moving the inlet boundary closer to the contact center. The following expression was derived for the dimensionless inlet distance at the boundary between the fully flooded and starved conditions: m* = 1 + 3.06 ((R/b)(R/b)H) to the power 0.58, where R is the effective radius of curvature, b is the semiminor axis of the contact ellipse, and H is the central film thickness for fully flooded conditions. A corresponding expression was also given based on the minimum film thickness for fully flooded conditions. Therefore, for m m*, starvation occurs and, for m m*, a fully flooded condition exists. Two other expressions were also derived for the central and minimum film thicknesses for a starved condition. Contour plots of the pressure and the film thickness in and around the contact are shown for the fully flooded and starved lubricating conditions, from which the film thickness was observed to decrease substantially as starvation increases.