The lubricating fluid film developed between the faces of mechanical seals is a fraction of micron in thickness leading to a mixed lubrication regime. However, over a velocity threshold the fluid film can completely separate the faces because of the hydrodynamic effect due to the surface roughness even if the mean surfaces are parallel. To study this phenomenon a deterministic model is preferable because the stochastic theory based on flow factors is unable to reproduce this effect. Unfortunately the deterministic approach needs a prohibitive amount of nodes and computation time. This is why a multi-scale model is proposed. It is composed of a micro-deterministic model working on small area coupled with a macro model giving the pressure distribution on a macro-mesh. The results of the multi-scale model are compared to a pure deterministic model in terms of accuracy and computation time when the areas of the macro-cells are varied.
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