Previous attempts to derive equations for the minimum film thickness in the elastic piezoviscous regime have relied upon extrapolations from numerical results. This paper describes an alternative approach in which the characteristics of heavily loaded contacts are exploited to obtain general expressions, firstly, for the central region and secondly, for the side lobes that may form at the ends of the contact. It is shown that the clearances in these two regions behave differently. The elastic piezoviscous regime must, therefore, be divided into two sub-regimes. Expressions for minimum clearance are presentedfor each.
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