To study the behaviour of grease and oil lubricants in a bearing.
Physics and modelling
The case was adopted to study the performance of different oil and grease lubricants. The solver included both flow and heat transfer, with
both viscosity models for oil and grease including temperature dependence. The grease model incorporated shear-thinning, i.e. reduced viscosity in regions of
high shear rate. The case geometry uses a complex tetrahedral mesh, with cyclic boundaries left and right.
OpenFOAM solver
bearingFoam
Images and animations
The example shows an isosurface of the viscosity of the grease that exhibits shear-thinning.
Author
Simulation by Nabla Ltd..
Viscosity isosurface for grease (shear-thinning) lubricant
