Compressible Fluid Model for Hydrodynamic Lubrication Cavitation

In this paper, it is shown how vaporous cavitation in lubricant films can be modeled in a physically justified manner through the constitutive (compressibility) relation of the fluid. The method treats the flow as a homogeneous mixture employing a “void fraction” variable to quantify the intensity of cavitation. It has been already proposed to study cavitation in fluid mechanics. It is shown how the widely used Jakobsson–Floberg–Olsson (JFO) / Elrod–Adams (EA) mass flow conservation model can be compared with this new model. Moreover, the new model can incorporate the variation of the viscosity in the cavitation region and allows the pressure to fall below a cavitation pressure. Numerical computations show that discrepancy with JFO/EA is mostly associated with light loading condition, starved situation or viscosity effects.