Research
Multiscale prediction of friction and lubrication in total hip replacement bearings.
the problem
Friction across scales
Lubrication in a ball-in-socket bearing is set both by the gross geometry and kinematics of the bearing and by physics that lives at the scale of surface texture and the thin lubricant film. Resolving everything at once is prohibitive, so the work centres on a multiscale method: capturing the microscale behaviour cheaply and feeding its effect back into a macroscale model.
approach
Heterogeneous Multiscale Method
The macro model solves the governing lubrication equations on a coarse mesh. At each point where microscale information is needed, a small representative cell is solved and homogenised to give effective coefficients — which then correct the macro solve. The methods section works this idea through on a clean 1D elliptic model problem before it appears in the full elastohydrodynamic setting.
publications
Publications
peer-reviewed journal article
A transient multiscale framework for elastohydrodynamic lubrication of rough ball-in-socket bearings
Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, 463 (2027)
A multiscale model reproduces a high-resolution deterministic solution for rough EHL within 3% in minimum film thickness and 3% in pressure, at a thirteenfold reduction in computational cost, under ASTM F3143 reciprocating hip loading.
Read the article doi:10.1016/j.cma.2026.119363
tools
Tools
FEniCS / PETSc for the finite-element solves, with HPC scaling for the parameter studies. Notebooks here are self-contained demonstrations rather than the production solver.