Contacts of indentors with functionally graded elastic solids may produce pressures significantly different from the results obtained for homogeneous elastic materials (Hertzian results). It is even more so for heavily loaded line elastohydrodynamically lubricated (EHL) contacts. The goal of the paper is to indicate two distinct ways the functionally graded elastic materials may alter the classic results for the heavily loaded line EHL contacts. Namely, besides pressure, the other two main characteristics which are influenced by the nonuniformity of the elastic properties of the contact materials are lubrication film thickness and frictional stress/friction force produced by lubricant flow. The approach used for analyzing the influence of functionally graded elastic materials on parameters of heavily loaded line EHL contacts is based on the asymptotic methods developed earlier by the authors such as Kudish (2013, Elastohydrodynamic Lubrication for Line and Point Contacts: Asymptotic and Numerical Approaches, Chapman & Hall/CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL), Kudish and Covitch (2010, Modeling and Analytical Methods in Tribology, Chapman & Hall/CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL), Aizikovich et al. (2002, “Analytical Solution of the Spherical Indentation Problem for a Half-Space With Gradients With the Depth Elastic Properties,” Int. J. Solids Struct., 39(10), pp. 2745–2772), Aizikovich et al. (2009, “Bilateral Asymptotic Solution of One Class of Dual Integral Equations of the Static Contact Problems for the Foundations Inhomogeneous in Depth,” Operator Theory: Advances and Applications, Birkhauser Verlag, Basel, p. 317), Aizikovich and Vasiliev (2013, “A Bilateral Asymptotic Method of Solving the Integral Equation of the Contact Problem for the Torsion of an Elastic Halfspace Inhomogeneous in Depth,” J. Appl. Math. Mech., 77(1), pp. 91–97), Volkov et al. (2013, “Analytical Solution of Axisymmetric Contact Problem About Indentation of a Circular Indenter Into a Soft Functionally Graded Elastic Layer,” Acta Mech. Sin., 29(2), pp. 196–201), Vasiliev et al. (2014, “Axisymmetric Contact Problems of the Theory of Elasticity for Inhomogeneous Layers,” Z. Angew. Math. Mech., 94(9), pp. 705–712), Aizikovich et al. (2008, “The Deformation of a Half-Space With a Gradient Elastic Coating Under Arbitrary Axisymmetric Loading,” J. Appl. Math. Mech., 72(4), pp. 461–467), and Aizikovich et al. (2010, “Inverse Analysis for Evaluation of the Shear Modulus of Inhomogeneous Media in Torsion Experiments,” Int. J. Eng. Sci., 48(10), pp. 936–942). More specifically, it is based on the analysis of contact problems for dry contacts of functionally graded elastic solids and the lubrication mechanisms in the inlet and exit zones as well as in the central region of heavily loaded lubricated contacts. The way the solution of the EHL problem for coated/functionally graded materials is obtained provides a very clear structure of the solution. The solution of the EHL problem in the Hertzian region is very close to the solution of the dry contact problem while in the inlet and exit zones the solutions of the EHL problem with the right asymptotes coming from the solution of the dry contact problem can be related to the solutions of the classic EHL problem for homogeneous materials.
Contact problems between a functionally graded layer and a rigid support
