Soft lubrication: A generalized numerical methodology

A generalized numerical methodology is introduced to deal with the lubrication between soft solids exhibiting linear viscoelastic rheological properties. By means of this approach, it is shown that significant deviations from classic elasto-hydrodynamic theory occur in terms of film thickness, pressure distribution and friction. By focusing on a simple tribo-system, consisting in a sphere in contact with a layer, the influence of the contact configuration is investigated. Ultimately, viscoelastic lubrication is shown to be exhaustively governed by three parameters: the Hersey number and the dimensionless velocities of the two contacting bodies. Finally, numerically obtained friction values are compared with experiments to validate the methodology.