A new method for cavitations approximation in some general lubrication devices

We apply in this paper a new numerical method to approximate cavitation phenomenons in some general devices in lubrication theory. The proposed method is based on some conservation laws satisfied by lubricants contained in the devices, and it combines a method of lines with an iterative algorithm solving at each step a linear problems with regular solutions. Some L∞ estimations providing convergence results are given; and numerical applications to an elastic journal bearing are presented to show the good performance of the method.