Considerations about the applicability of the Reynolds equation for analyzing high-speed near field levitation phenomena

This paper presents the results of investigations into the applicability of the Reynolds equation for analyzing near field levitation (NFL) phenomena. Two separate approaches were developed, experimentally verified, and applied to meet the research objective. One was based on the Reynolds equation and the other was based on general conservation equations for fluid flow solved using computational fluid dynamic (CFD). Comparing the calculation results revealed that, for certain operating conditions, differences in the predicted system parameters appear. It was proven that both the Reynolds and Helmholtz numbers define border operating conditions for the applicability of the Reynolds equation to analyze NFL problems. (c) 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).