Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Lubricant Retention on a Rotating

Disc and Gear Teeth

Ranadip Acharya Huan Zhang Zaffir Chaudhry
Senior Research Scientist Staff Research Scientist Fellow
United Technologies United Technologies United Technologies
Research Center Research Center Research Center
East Hartford, CT East Hartford, CT East Hartford, CT

John Maglieri Bruce Thompson

Program Manager Program Manager
Aviation Development Directorate/Aviation Aviation Development Directorate/Aviation
Applied Technology Directorate Applied Technology Directorate
U.S Army Research, Development, and U.S Army Research, Development, and
Engineering Command Engineering Command
Fort Eustis, VA Fort Eustis, VA
ABSTRACT
Loss of the primary lubrication in a helicopter gearbox can result in a very rapid or even immediate failure of the
system due to the much-reduced heat removal and the degrading tribological performance of the highly loaded gear
contacts. While a limited understanding of this topic may be an acceptable risk for ground vehicles, however, a
properly functioning gearbox is flight safety critical for helicopters. Therefore a deeper understanding of the
degradation mechanisms is essential to accurately assess the time duration in which the helicopter gearbox can
function under oil-out conditions and evaluate designs targeting the desired extension. Current methods for
predicting the gearbox life and performance under the loss-of-lubrication situation are indeed largely experimental
and experience-based and they provide only limited insights into the underlying physics of the evolving tribology of
gears and bearings. One of the major technical barriers that currently limit the physics-based predictive capability is
a lack of reliable, quantitative modeling of lubricant retention on the gear tooth surface after the loss of lubrication.
This paper first describes the film thickness measurement with the white light interferometry for the lubricant
remaining on a glass disc after a certain number of revolutions at a given speed. This is followed by a description of
a 3D numerical ANSYS CFX® model which mimics the experimental set-up. The controlling model parameters are
the centrifugal and viscous forces, surface tension, temperature, and lubricant-disc contact angle. The predicted
effects of rotation speed and temperature are validated by the experimental results. Finally, the modeling
methodology is used to simulate the lubricant retention on a gear tooth surface over the range of temperature and
speed of a typical helicopter gearbox.

INTRODUCTION 
The operation of a helicopter relies on its transmission
system which consists of gearboxes, drive shafts, and other
accessories at various locations as illustrated in Figure 1.
Power is transferred from the engine to the main rotor, tail
rotor, and ancillary systems. The internal interactions in
these gearboxes are complicated and varied. The types of
gears include spur, spiral bevel and helical gears and the
orientation can be vertical, horizontal or in between. The
speed ranges from 100’s rpm at the main rotor to 20,000 and
higher rpm at the engine input to the gearbox.

Figure 1. Helicopter transmission assembly (Ref. 1).

Presented at the AHS International 73rd Annual Forum &
Technology Display, Fort Worth, Texas, USA, May 9-11, 2017. The helicopter transmission system is dependent on a
Copyright © 2017 by United Technologies Research Center. properly functioning lubrication system and, under normal
Published with permission.
1
operations, lubricant is circulated in the system to keep
friction and heat generation low and remove excess heat.
However, the helicopter transmissions often suffer from the
improper lubrication, interrupted lubrication, or a total loss
of lubrication due to a faulty design, maintenance
mishandling, or operation or even combat damage (Ref. 1).
In these cases, the lubricant film becomes progressively
thinner, reducing heat dissipation and causing metal-to-metal
contact to occur. As a result, there will be a rise in oil and
contact temperature and subsequent gear damage such as
rubbing, scuffing, scoring, seizing and galling.
It was only post the Vietnam conflict that the U.S. military
started to set up a safe operation criterion for rotorcraft
transmissions after the loss of primary oil flow. The criterion
was six minutes in the beginning and was later extended to
30 minutes in order to allow the helicopter transmissions
operating from a hostile or hazardous region to a safe area
after the combat damage. The 30-minute criterion was also
adopted by FAA (Ref. 2) and European Aviation Safety
Agency (EASA) (Ref. 3).
Figure 2. Key physics involved in the gearbox after the
loss of lubrication.
The main gearbox (MGB) is the most critical subsystem in
the helicopter transmission (Refs. 4-6). It is a portion of the
helicopter transmission that mechanically connects the
engines to the rotor and transmits torque to the rotor system.
Figure 2 illustrates key physical processes inside a gearbox
following the loss of oil supply. The system is immediately
deprived of the oil cooling effect. The gear tooth meshing
quickly transitions from full elastohydrodynamic lubrication
(EHL), then in sequence through light mixed, deep mixed
and boundary lubrication, and eventually to the complete
breakdown of boundary film and direct metal-to-metal
contact. The process is characterized by a lubricant film of
decreasing thickness and an increasing level of metal-to-
metal contact. These changes are further accelerated by the
increase of friction, heat generation, and increased
component surface temperature. Eventually, the attendant
increased temperature leads to gear failure, either directly
through thermal failure or indirectly through the teeth
jamming as a result of excessive thermal expansion.
2
Given the critical importance of the helicopter gearbox
performance after the loss of lubrication, progress has been
made over the years to understand and model the fast-
changing physics involved. However, a fully predictive
capability can only be possible after the following two major
technical barriers are overcome:
1) lack of reliable, quantitative modeling of lubricant
retention on the tooth surface during the loss of
lubrication, and
2) inadequate understanding of the surface topography
and material evolution of gear teeth in the process.
The current work targets the first barrier by developing
experimental and modeling techniques to quantify the
evolution of a thin lubricant layer on a surface rotating at a
high speed. The intention of this investigation was to
advance the fundamental understanding of the lubricant
retention process.
The white light interferometry method is first used to
measure the thickness of a thin layer of lubricant on a
rotating glass disc for various rotation speeds and
temperatures. An ANSYS CFX® model is then developed in
to predict the lubricant retention for the test set-up. The
model fully captures the effects of temperature and speed on
the lubricant fling-off and retention as indicated by the
rotating disc tests. Finally, the modeling technique is used to
simulate the lubricant retention on a gear tooth surface for a
given rotation speed and system temperature.
MEASUREMENT OF FILM THICKNESS
FOR A THIN LAYER OF LUBRICANT
Experimental
Figure 3. Measurement of EHL film for a ball-on-disc
contact with the white light interferometry.
Various types of acoustic, capacitive, inductive and optical
techniques have been developed for measuring the thin
lubricant film thickness as a key indicator of the lubrication
performance. The measurement is usually made for the
lubricated (point) contact between a sliding ball and a flat
disc based on the reflection or transmission of a certain (e.g.
optical) wave from or through opposite surfaces and the
lubricant layer in-between. For example, as shown in Figure
3, the white light interferometry has widely been used to
measure the thickness of the EHL oil film in the point
contact (Ref. 7). A pattern of fringes showing gradual color
variation is formed by the interference of the reflection and
deflection of the white light beam from the glass disc, oil
film, and chromium layer. The complete contour map of the
lubricating film can be determined from the colorimetric
image analysis of the interference fringe pattern.
(a)
(b)
Figure 4. (a) the test set-up on a WAM® for the thickness
measurement of a thin lubricant film on a rotating glass
disc; (b) the disc with a thin layer before rotation.
In the absence of the opposite surface, special development
is still needed for a thin lubricant layer on a fast moving
solid surface (e. g. gear teeth) despite the advances in above-
mentioned measurement techniques. The applicability of the
white light interferometry (WLI) to a liquid layer on a
rotating disc is first evaluated on a WAM® machine at
Wedeven Associates, Inc. Figure 4 (a) shows the test
configuration and Figure 4 (b) shows a glass disc covered
with a layer of lubricant before the rotation starts. As shown
in Figure 5, a 5-mm wide radial stripe of the disc is coated
with a reflective chromium layer. The lubricant layer
thickness is measured by means of interference due to the
light wave reflections from the coating and the top of the
lubricant layer. The measurement procedure eventually
formulated is as follows.
3
1) Heat the clean disc to the test temperature while
rotating at the test speed.
2) At a specified test temperature, cover the entire top
face of disc with oil.
3) Spin the disc at a specified speed for 5 minutes.
4) Stop the disc and clean a small area on the stripe
and take a photo of the fringe pattern for, as shown
in Figure 5, two locations at radii of 55, 45 and 40
mm, respectively.
5) Estimate the maximum film thickness by
comparing the WLI fringe pattern to a calibrated
fringe order.
Figure 5. Film thickness measurement locations on a
glass disc.
The procedure is then used to systematically investigate the
effects of operating temperature and rotation speed on the
lubricant fling off and retention on the disc for BP Turbo Oil
25 (4.9-5.4 cSt @100 °C). The test matrix consists of three
temperature levels: 40, 70 and 100 °C, and three rotation
speeds: 2000, 4000 and 6000 rpm. With a diameter of 127
mm, the corresponding maximum linear speeds are 5.3, 10.6
and 16 m/s.
Results
Within the temperature and speed ranges tested, the lubricant
fling-off starts with a very high rate and fringe patterns are
formed by the thinning lubricant on the disc surface. Figure
6 shows such patterns after the rotation is stopped for 2,000
rpm at 40 °C and 100 °C, respectively. High resolution
pictures of the patterns are used to determine the film
thickness at the three different radial positions by comparing
to a calibrated fringe order. The accuracy of the estimation is
± 50 nm. Figure 7 shows the results for five of the nine cases
tested.
 (d)

(a)
(e)
Figure 7. High-resolution lubricant fringe pattern at the
three radial positions of measurement and derivation of
the film thickness from a calibrated fringe order: (a)
2,000 rpm-40°C; (b) 2,000 rpm-70°C; (c) 2,000 rpm-
100°C; (d) 4,000 rpm-40°C; (e) 6,000 rpm-40°C.

(b)
Figure 6. Lubricant fringe pattern on the whole rotating
disc: (a) 2,000 rpm-40 °C; (b) 2,000 rpm-100 °C.

Figure 8. Dependence of the measured film thickness on

the rotation speed and temperature.

As a summary, Figure 8 plots the measured maximum film

thickness against the disc rotation speed for three test
temperatures. The results show that, except for slight non-
(a)
linearity at the 40 °C case, the measured film thickness
decreases linearly with the temperature or speed. These
experimental results are used to validate the numerical
model described in the following sections.

MODELING OF LUBRICANT RETENTION

ON A ROTATING DISC
(b) Fundamental Physics and Numerical Model
Prior to modeling of the gear lubricant retention, a numerical
model is developed to simulate the lubricant thinning-
process for the rotating disc test set-up. The governing
factors of the process include inertia and centrifugal force,
viscous force, air drag gravity, and surface tension. Figure 9
shows the schematic of the model problem. Here r and z
represents the radial and vertical directions, and h denotes
(c) the thickness of the lubricant film sitting on top of an
annular disk rotating at angular velocity, Ω.
4
 outlet condition is provided at boundary 6 and the top outlet
boundary is expanded to outlet 5.

Figure 9. Model problem schematic: the lubricant-

thinning on a rotating disc.

The fluid assumes the same velocity at the disc surface

based on no-slip condition at its boundary in contact with the
solid. The rest of the fluid film starts at zero velocity. A full
3D numerical model is thus developed to compute the
momentum or velocity field by solving Navier-Stokes and
continuity equations. The 3D computational domain consists
of the liquid phase and the air phase on top. The latter is
added in order to obtain the free surface topography, i.e. the
film thickness profile. With the depletion of the lubricant
film, the space is filled by air.

Given the presence of two phases in the domain, the

continuity equation is given by Figure 10. ANSYS CFX® model of the lubricant-
thinning process on a rotating disc: a sector of annular
disc with extended volume at top and outlet and the full
(1) disc with rotation of the sector model.

Here, α = 1, 2 is the phase indicator, is the density, is
velocity, and indicates interphase mass transfer terms
between phases. Similarly, the momentum equation in the
form of the full Navier-stokes equation is given by
A domain of 50 m in vertical or gravitational (y-) direction
is modeled. The extended part of the domain, region 4-5 and
3-6 (gray and blue colored in Figure 10), is filled with air
and modeled as a stationary domain. The rest of the volume
is initially filled with lubricant and is solved as a rotating
domain to account for the centrifugal force effect.

+ +
(2)

Here, N=2 is the number of phases, is viscosity, is the

pressure, is the interfacial force term, and
the interphase momentum
transfer term. ANSYS CFX® (Ref. 8) is used to solve these
fundamental equations for a 1° sector of the annulus to take
advantage of the periodicity of the problem, see Figure 10.
Based on the test set-up, the internal radius of the annular
region is 10 mm and the outer radius is 60 mm, shown as
surface 2 and 3 in the figure. Surface 1 and 4 indicate the Figure 11. ANSYS CFX® model of the lubricant-
disc surface and the top of the fluid film. The computational thinning process on a rotating disc: domain connection at
domain is extended upwards and in the radial direction to the interface.
minimize the numerical instability near the boundary. No-
slip condition is applied at surface 1. Instead of surface 3, Figure 11 shows the domain connection at the interface. The
domain interface is set as a frozen rotor frame-change
5
model. The frame of reference is changed but the relative
orientation of the components across the interface is fixed.
The two frames of reference connect in such a way that they
each have a fixed relative position throughout the
calculation. Upon the frame change, the equations are
transformed accordingly. This model leads to a steady state
solution of the problem, taking account of the interaction
between the two frames. Surface tension is modeled as a
continuum (volume) force (Ref. 9) concentrated at the
interface, rather than a surface force. This requires a
numerical solution in double precision with a very fine grid.
The total number of nodes is close to 1.3 million.

Solution of the Rotating Disc Problem (b)

The numerical simulation of the lubricant fling-off is

conducted for the rotating disc model under various
isothermal conditions (e.g. T = 40 °C, 100 °C, etc.). Table 1
lists the parameters of the model problem. A drag coefficient
of 0.44 is used to allow the momentum exchange between
the air and lubricant. The wetting angle at the disk surface is
specified as 12° and thus the wall adhesion is modeled. Due
to the fine grid required or the surface tension modeling, the
simulation takes a very small time step (t =10-6 s) and the
domain convergence is achieved by a residual of 10 -4.
Further numerical considerations include ensuring the
maximum courant number, uΔt/Δx, below two and using
adaptive time stepping in the simulation. Here u is the
characteristic wave speed of the system. The ANSYS CFX® (c)
model is performed by using over 72 nodes on HPC linux
clusters.

Table 1. Key parameters of the CFD simulation for the

experimental set-up.
Temperature (°C) English Metric
μ [Pa.s] 0.0194 0.0042
3
ρ [kg/m ] 843 843
2 -5 -6
ν [m /s] 3.14×10 4.98×10
σ [N/m] 0.0339 0.0328
Ω [rpm] 2000-6000
R0 (mm) 60
(d)
H0 (m) 50
Wetting angle (°) 12

(e)

(a)

6
 summary, the following overall trend of the effects of
temperature and rotating speed can be extrapolated from
these results.

h2000rpm, T=40°C > h4000rpm, T=40°C > h2000rpm, T=100°C > h6000rpm,
T=40°C > h4000rpm, T=100°C > h6000rpm, T=100°C

This predicted trend fully matches that observed in the

rotating disc test results, suggesting the numerical model is
capable of capturing competing physics involved in the
lubricant thinning process on the rotating disc.

(f)

Figure 12. ANSYS CFX® model of the lubricant-

thinning process on a rotating disc: evolution of the free
surface at t = (a) 0 s, (b) 0.001 s, (c) 0.002 s, (d) 0.003 s, (e)
0.005 s, and (f) 0.0065 s.

The characteristics of the solution field can be represented

by using the transient volume fraction contour of the liquid
phase and the history of averaged volume fraction. Figure 12
shows the transient evolution of lubricant volume fraction
retained in the domain for T = 100 °C and Ω = 6000 rpm.
Same as the test observation, the lubricant starts spinning off
from the disc early and the spinning off slows down as the
time progresses. At t = 0.003 s (Figure 12 d), horizontal
fringes starts to appear, indicatign a non-uniform film on the
disc. Figure 13 shows the evolving lubricant fractional
Figure 14. ANSYS CFX® model of the lubricant-
volume retained on the disc for this case. Again, the
thinning process on a rotating disc: predicted time-
lubricant spinning off is very rapid from the beginning of the
history of the lubricant fractal volume for six test cases.
disc rotation.
MODELING OF LUBRICANT RETENTION
ON THE GEAR TOOTH SURFACE
After the loss of lubrication, the evolving morphology of a
lubricant layer on a gear tooth surface, as a result of fling-off
and temperature rise, is governed by physics very similar to
the case of a liquid layer on a rotating disc. The modeling
approach developed and verified for the latter is utilized to
study the lubricant retention on the tooth surface of a spur
gear in a quasi-2D set-up.

The gear parameters of the configuration are selected based

Figure 13. ANSYS CFX® model of the lubricant-
thinning process on a rotating disc: evolving oil retention
at T=100°C and =6000 rpm.
The numerical model is used to study the effects of rotation
speed and temperature on the lubricant retention. Figure 14
compares the predicted time-history of the lubricant
fractional volume for six cases in the text matrix. In
7
on a gear test rig within United Technologies Research
Center (Ref. 10). Figure 15 shows that the gears on the rig
are arranged in such a way that their centers form an
equilateral triangle with two identical pinions at the bottom
and one gear at the top. One pinion serves as the driving and
the other as the driven while the gear works as an idler in the
gearbox. The pinions and gear have 23 and 44 teeth,
respectively. Table 2 lists the gear design parameters of the
rig. From these parameters, the profile of the gear teeth is
generated and imported into ANSYS CFX®.
 Figure 16 shows the computation domains of the quasi-2D
gear tooth model. The gear tooth is rotating
counterclockwise about Y axis through the gear center. A
250 µm domain of rotating domain is modeled to account for
the film and air interaction. The initial film thickness is
assumed to be 100 µm. Similar to the rotating disc model, an
extended stationary domain is used to reduce the instability
near the outlet.

Figure 17 shows the intermediate film profile for 6000 rpm

and 100 °C. The tooth surface is marked in blue (dark) and
the film profile is indicated by the green (light) surface. The
film depletion starts immediately, and the minimum
thickness is observed near the tooth tip and the maximum at
the root. In comparison, for the rotating disc, the fractional
volume contours shown in Figure 12 suggests that the film
Figure 15. Gear test rig within United Technologies thickness is at the minimum for the center ring next to the
Research Center. inner radial boundary and rises to the maximum within the
adjacent outer ring. From that to the outer radius of the disc,
Table 2. Gear Design Parameters of a UTRC Test Rig. the film thickness gradually decreases with fluctuation.
Number of teeth 23 44
Face width (mm) 30 30
Addendum coefficient 0.865 0.751
Profile shift coefficient 0 0
Dedendum coefficient 1.361 1.475
Center distance (mm) 101.6
Pressure angle (°) 20
Helix angle (°) 0
Module (mm) 3 (a)

(b)

Figure 16. ANSYS CFX® model of the lubricant-

thinning process on a gear tooth: rotating and stationary
domains. (c)

8
 (d)
(e)
(f)
Figure 17. ANSYS CFX® model of the lubricant-
thinning process on a gear tooth for 6000 rpm and
100°C: film thickness profile at a) zero rotation (initial),
b) =90°, c)  =180°, d)  =270°, e)  =360°, and f) after 3
full rotations.
A parametric study is conducted with the gear tooth model
to evaluate the effects of rotation speed and temperature on
the lubricant retention on the tooth surface. The simulation
covers three gear rotations. Figure 18 shows the simulated
oil film depletion from the gear tooth surface measured by
the fractional volume of oil retained. Similar to the findings
from the rotating disc tests and simulation, the initial
depletion rate is very high. After one rotation, the depletion
slows down. By comparing the average volume fraction of
oil retained, the following conclusion can be drawn about
the retention time for lubricant on the gear tooth studied:
h2000rpm, T=40°C> h2000rpm, T=100°C≥ h5000rpm, T=40°C> h10000rpm,
T=40°C> h5000rpm, T=100°C> h 10000rpm, T=100°C
9
Figure 18. ANSYS CFX® model of the lubricant-
thinning process on a gear tooth: comparison of the oil
film depletion from the surface.
From the similarities of the gear tooth simulation results to
those of the rotating flat disc, we can postulate that the oil
retention time achieved from the rotating disc study can
provide a reasonable estimation of the lubricant retention
period for a gear operating within a gearbox if the disc is
made of the same material and with the same finishing.
CONCLUSIONS
The lack of reliable, quantitative modeling of lubricant
retention on the tooth surface is one of the major technical
barriers currently limiting the physics-based predictive
capability for the gearbox oil-out performance. This critical
physics is investigated experimentally and numerically in
this paper. The white light interferometry is first used to
measure the film thickness of the lubricant on a glass disk
rotating at a speed up to 6000 rpm and at temperatures from
40 to 100 °C. After 5 minutes of rotation, the film thickness
is in the range of 100’s nm for all the cases. Except for the
lowest speed or temperature tested, the results show that the
measured film thickness decreases linearly with the
temperature and speed. A CFD model is then developed in
ANSYS CFX® model to simulate the lubricant fling-off
process from a rotating disc by factoring in the centrifugal
force, air drag, and surface tension. The model fully captures
the effects of temperature and speed on the lubricant fling-
off and retention observed in the rotating disc tests. The
same modeling approach is applied to the gearbox
configuration to simulate the lubricant retention on the tooth
surface. The effects of rotation speed and temperature are
evaluated through a parametric study and the similarities in
the trend of retention time allow us to conclude that rotating
flat-disc experimental and simulation can be used as a viable
alternative to study the oil retention time in a gearbox.
Author contact: Ranadip Acharya acharyr1@utrc.utc.com,
Huan Zhang zhangh@utrc.utc.com, Zaffir Chaudhry
chaudhza@utrc.utc.com, John Maglieri

john.m.maglieri.civ@mail.mil, Bruce Thompson
bruce.e.thompson60.civ@mail.mil.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors are grateful to the US Army’s National
Rotorcraft Technology Center program and United
Technologies Research Center for funding this research:
NRTC-FY15-D-01B. The authors also appreciate the
assistance provided by Bill Black from Wedeven Associates,
Inc. for the test support in the thin film thickness
measurement and by Bruce Hansen from Sikorsky Lockheed
Martin for his guidance and support.
8
ANSYS CFX®, Release 15.0, ANSYS, Inc., 2014.
9
Brackbill, J.U, Kothe, D.B. and Zemach, C., “A
continuum method for modeling surface tension,” Journal of
Computational Physics, Vol. 100, (2), July 1992.
10
Liou, J., Zhang, H., Sun, F., Chaudhry, Z., “Numerical
and Experimental Investigation of the Influence of Debris
Induced Surface Indentation on Spur Gear Contacts,”
Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers 69th
Annual Meeting, Lake Buena Vista, Florida, May 2014.

This effort was partially funded by the US Government

under Agreement number W15QKN-10-9-0003 between
Vertical Lift Consortium, Inc. and the Government. The US
Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute
reprints for Governmental purposes notwithstanding any
copyright notation thereon.

The views and conclusions contained in this document are

those of the authors and should not be interpreted as
representing the official policies, either expressed or
implied, of the U.S. Government.

DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. Approved for public

release; distribution is unlimited.
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10