CHAPTER 4

ELROD ALGORITHM

Formulation of JFO Boundary Conditions

Contrary to the half Sommerfeld condition, which limits the

computed pressure distribution to positive values, the JFO
boundary conditions conserve the mass flux between the points of
inception and end of cavitation by adopting the Reynolds boundary
condition at film rupture. The pressure is invariant and equal to
the ambient value over the entire cavitated region.

….equation

4.1

The benefit of this is that the pressure is made to tend

gradually to cavitation value at the onset of film rupture, rather
than being artificially reset to cavitation value.

Figure 4.1 Onset of Cavitation (Source: Luis San Andre, 2005)

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 Within the cavitation zone there is an amount of liquid flow

transported in the circumferential direction (Figure 4.2).

……..equation 4.2

Figure 4.2 Film Reformation (Source: Luis San Andre, 2005 )

Film reformation occurs at the trailing edge t (Figure 4.2). At

this boundary, a film of liquid completely fills the clearance
between journal and bearing. Consider a small line element AS at
the reformation boundary line r, with a unit normal vector given by:

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 Thus the flow entering the full film zone at the reformation
boundary is

To satisfy mass continuity, the flow leaving the cavitation

zone must balance the flow entering the full film zone through the
reformation line i.e.

…..equation 4.3

The solution of this equation determines the slope dx/dz of the

reformation boundary line  i.e. the coordinate x as a function of
the axial position z.

2.3,4.1 and 4.2 together constitute the JFO boundary

conditions and provide the criteria for a physically correct solution
of the Reynolds equation in the full film zone. Figure 4.3 shows a
comparison of the pressure distributions to be expected by
adopting each of the boundary conditions.

The biggest detriment to using the JFO conditions is that the

onset and extent of the cavitation zone are not known prior to
solution. Therefore they have to be tracked at every iteration at
every grid point, making the solution procedure cumbersome. The
Elrod algorithm seeks to circumvent this difficulty by incorporating

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the JFO conditions directly into the Reynolds equation by an
ingenious reformulation.

Figure 4.3 Pressure Distributions Corresponding to Different

Boundary Conditions (Source: Dowson and Taylor, 1979 )

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4. Elrod Algorithm

In a compressible liquid, density is related to pressure by the

relationship:

……equation4.4

where pc = density of lubricant at cavitation, kg/m3

Let ……equation 4.5

Due to a slight compression in the full film,  is always

greater than unity here. Whereas in the cavitated zone,  is to be
interpreted differently. It is the fractional volume of space occupied
by the striations in the total void cavitated space. Here, it is not
used to compute pressure, since it is known that whenever
cavitation is encountered, pressure is equal to the ambient.

Introducing a 'switch function' g into Equation

….equation4.6

Direct integration of Equation 4.6 gives

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 P = Pcav + g ln( a ) ….equation4.7

where Pcav= cavitation pressure, Pa

P   g

Full Film Region >cav >c >1 =1

Point of Cavitation =cav =c =1 =0

Cavitated Region <cav <c <1 =0

Table 4.1 Variable Values in Different Flow Regions

For computing pressure gradients in the full film region (for
two pressures P1 and P2, both greater than Pcav), we have from
Equation ,
….equation4.8
From Equation it is clear that a small change in the density
ratio  will cause a large variation in pressure because the bulk
modulus is typically a very large number.
The conservation of global mass in a thin film is given by

….equation4.9

where the components in the full film region are:

….equation4.10

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Incorporating and Equation4.9 in Equation4.8 we

get the reformulated Reynolds equation as below:

….equation4.11

It may be noted that:

1. The density of lubricant at cavitation c point does not figure
in this equation.
2. This reformulated equation is valid in all regions of fluid flow,
by applying the appropriate value for the switch g .
3. For the full film region, g = land Equation4.10 reduces to

which is identical to the classical two dimensional Reynolds

equation:

4. For the cavitated region, g = 0 and Equation4.10 reduces

to

Suitable solution methods and differencing schemes for the

Elrod algorithm are discussed in the following chapter.

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4.3 Vijayaraghavan-Keith Scheme

Vijayaraghavan and Keith (1989 [8]) propose a modified

differencing scheme for the EIrod algorithm, which preserves the
original functionality with the following improvements:

1. Its finite difference scheme is such that its shear flow

(convective) term automatically alters its form between central
differencing in the full film and backward in the cavitated
zone.
2. The shear flow term in the full film includes the fractional film
content  (which is slightly larger than unity) thereby
including the effect of compressibility of the lubricant in this
region.
Being an outgrowth of the Elrod algorithm, nothing new is
proposed in terms of mathematical formulation. The alternative
differencing scheme is discussed in the following chapter, and
contrasted with Elrod's scheme.

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 CHAPTER 5
FINITE DIFFERENCE MODEL

5.1 Finite Difference Equations of Elrod Algorithm

The finite difference equations conserve mass flux in the axial

and circumferential directions in each cell, thereby making this a
constant volume method. The circumferential flow has a shear or
convective (Couette) component and a pressure gradient (Poiseulle)
component. The axial flow is purely of Poiseulle type. In the
cavitated zone, flow is essentially of Couette type and the Poiseulle
components vanish due to the earlier assumption that striations
exist in this region.

Figure 5.1 Finite Difference Grid

Elrod (1981 [4]) proposed a two point differencing scheme,
which leads to a general elliptic and linear difference-differential
equation in . For the circumferential direction at the (n+1)th instant
of time,

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 This is an empirical formulation chosen because it models
satisfactorily the following three cases:
1. Cavitated upstream node for any downstream condition
2. Full film upstream with cavitation downstream
3. Both upstream and downstream in full film.
This may be verified by substituting the corresponding values
of the switch function. The Poiseulle component of circumferential
flow is derived from Equation 4.7 as:

Extending to the two-dimensional case,

5.2 Finite Difference Equations of Vijayaraghavan-Keith

Scheme

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 For the shear flow (convective) term

the following scheme is proposed.

Let

In the full film region, gi+1+gi +gi-1 = 1 and the shear flow term

therefore becomes which is of central difference form.

This form is suited for the shear flow term in the full film because
the governing equation is elliptic in this region. Alternatively, it is
hyperbolic in the cavitated zone where g i+1+gi+gi-1=0, and therefore a
backward difference scheme is preferred. This self switching is
made possible by type differencing technique that the algorithm
employs. In the cavitated zone, the shear flow term becomes

, which is an upwind scheme. This is one of the two

important improvements over the original algorithm proposed by

Elrod.
In the full film, the new shear flow term is

whereas the corresponding

original term is . It is seen that the new term

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contains  i.e. additionally it accounts for the slight compression of
the lubricant in the full film (where  is slightly more than unity),
which in turn alters the pressure. This is the other benefit over the
original algorithm.

The pressure gradient term is

differenced as follows.

For a one-dimensional problem, mass conservation is given

by:

where

Substituting Equations 53 a, 5.3 b and 5A b in Equations Aa ,

we get the finite difference equation in one dimension as follows:

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where

Similar equations may be derived for the two dimensional

problem as follows. For the circumferential direction,

For the axial direction,

For a two-dimensional problem, mass conservation is given by:

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where

Combining Equations5.6a,5.6b,5.6c and 5.7b in Equations.7a

rearranging the terms, we get the following system.

where n and n + lrepresent successive instants of time

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 Figure 5.2 Interpolation Grid

This equation gives the nodal value of a at any instant in

terms of four neighboring nodal values from the previous instant,

and is used to interpolate for  throughout the grid. It may be

noted that except for the half step values of h all variables are

associated with nodes.

5.3 Thomas Algorithm

The Thomas algorithm (Anderson, Tannehill and Fletcher,

1984 [5], Ames, 1992 [14]) is a modified Gauss elimination

procedure applicable to tridiagonal systems of equations, such as

the one produced by the Vijayaraghavan-Keith Algorithm (1989 [8]).

(Multigrid techniques for the solution of the Elrod algorithm have

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been proposed (Woods and Brewe, 1989 [9]), but the Thomas

algorithm presents simpler computation))

Consider the one dimensional Vijayaraghavan-Keith

formulation given by Equation.5.5.

After performing this system can be written in matrix

form as below.

Apart from the first and last rows (which correspond to the

boundary conditions) the matrix on the left hand side is tridiagonal.

The Thomas algorithm, which is the Gaussian elimination modified

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to take advantage of the zeros in the matrix of coefficients, is

applied to effect the time march for this system. The boundary

conditions, being of Dirichlet type, may be incorporated in the right

hand side, thereby removing one row and column. The modified

system is presented below.

The system of equations is put into upper triangular form by

replacing the diagonal elements qi with

and the is with

The unknowns are then computed using back substitution

starting with

and continuing with

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 The time march is carried out with a suitable time step

iteratively till a convergence is reached. Convergence is marked by

invariant values of  or by a cyclic pattern of variation. It may be

mentioned that the switch was updated at the end of each iteration

and the most recent values of the switch and  were used in each

iteration.

To apply the Thomas algorithm for the two dimensional

problem, Brewe (1986 [7]) and others recommend the Alternate

Direction Implicit (ADI) method, which is based on the Euler

scheme and known to be unconditionally stable. By the ADI

method, each time march is split into two parts; in the first half,

changes in the circumferential direction are calculated while old a

values are used to determine gradients in the axial direction; in the

second half, the recently calculated a distribution is used to

evaluate circumferential gradients while axial changes are updated.

Each part of an iteration is treated as a one dimensional problem

and the terms of the governing equation corresponding to changes

in the other dimension are treated as constant. Thus, the ADI

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method allows use of the Thomas algorithm for the two dimensional

case too. The other benefit of splitting the time march is that

different time steps can be used for the axial and circumferential

sweeps. The switch was updated after every sweep as suggested by

Brewe and the most recent values of switch and  were used at any

sweep.

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