Ultrasonic measurement for lubricant film thickness with consideration to the effect of the solid materials.

• An improved ultrasonic reflection coefficient phase model is proposed for calculating the analytic solution to the lubricant film thickness. • The lubricant film thickness in both the spring model region and the blind region is measured in systems with different material properties of the solid layers. • The influence of the material properties of the solid layers on the reflection coefficient phase is investigated. An improved ultrasonic reflection coefficient phase model is proposed for lubricant film thickness measurement with consideration to the influence of the solid layers. In the model, the theoretical relation of the lubricant film thickness to ultrasonic reflection coefficient phase is established, which is used for effectively determining the lubricant film thickness. Furthermore, the proposed model is verified by both the finite element analysis and experiments. The results show that the lubricant film thickness ranges between 2 μm and 45 μm can be measured by using the proposed model, which covers both the spring model region and the blind region. In addition, at a small film thickness, the reflection coefficient phase is significantly affected by the acoustic impedances in both solid layers. However, the reflection coefficient phase is dominantly affected by the solid layer in the neighbourhood of the incidence source at a large film thickness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]