On the lubrication approximation for a class of viscoelastic fluids

We present a rigorous derivation of a dimensionally reduced Reynolds type equation for thin film flow lubrication of a class of viscoelastic fluids by employing a perturbation analysis on the upper-convected Maxwell model in natural orthogonal coordinates. This approximation accounts for the viscoelastic and curvature corrections to the classical Reynolds lubrication approximation. Comparison of our approximation with the classical Reynolds approximation suggests that viscoelasticity can have a significant influence on the lubrication characteristics, at least for certain values of the film thickness and of the eccentricity ratios of the journal bearing.