Optical characterization of elastohydrodynamic lubricated (EHL) contacts using surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect

In this paper we report a novel optical technique based on the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) phenomenon for studying elastohydrodynamic lubricated (EHL) dimple. While it is well known that the refractive index (RI) variation in the lubricant may provide direct information on the pressure distribution inside a highly pressurized EHL dimple, one can obtain the pressure in the spectral SPR absorption curve, which corresponds to a unique color complexion in the SPR image.