Analysis of a cavitation model including bubbles in thin film lubrication

Abstract

In the lubrication area, which is concerned with thin film flow, cavitation has been considered as a fundamental element to correctly describe the characteristics of lubricated mechanisms. Here, the well-posedness of a cavitation model that can explain the interaction between viscous effects and micro-bubbles of gas is studied. This cavitation model consists of a coupled problem between the compressible Reynolds PDE (that describes the flow) and the Rayleigh-Plesset ODE (that describes micro-bubbles evolution). This coupled model seems never to be studied before from its mathematical aspects. Local times existence results are proved and stability theorems are obtained based on the continuity of the spectrum for bounded linear operators. Numerical results are presented to illustrate these theoretical results.