Abstract
Point contact film thickness in elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) is analyzed by image processing method for the images from an optical interferometer with monochromatic incident light. Interference between the reflected lights both on half mirror Cr coating of glass disk and on super finished ball makes circular fringes depending on the contact conditions such as sliding velocity, applied load, viscosity-pressure characteristics and viscosity of lubricant under ambient pressure. In this situation the film thickness is regarded as the difference of optical paths between those reflected lights, which make dark and bright fringes with monochromatic incident light. The film thickness is computed by numbering the dark and bright fringe orders and the intensity (gray scale image) in each fringe regime is mapped to the corresponding film thickness. In this work, we developed a measuring technique for EHL film thickness by dividing the image patterns into two typical types under the condition of monochromatic incident light. During the image processing, the captured image is converted into digitally formatted data over the contact area without any loss of the image information of interferogram and it is also interpreted with consistency regardless of the observer's experimental experience. It is expected that the developed image processing method will provide a valuable basis to develop the image processing technique for color fringes, which is generally used for the measurement of relatively thin films in higher resolution.