Let and be the radial and vertical velocity components. For steady incompressible axisymmetric flow without swirl, mass conservation and the relevant cylindrical components of the Navier-Stokes equation are
The vertical scale is . Incompressibility over radial scale and gap scale gives . In the radial equation, inertia is smaller than transverse viscous stress by
while radial viscous derivatives are smaller than by . The pressure scale is . In the vertical equation, both viscous and inertial terms are smaller than the corresponding cross-gap pressure-gradient scale by at least . Thus the leading lubrication theory equations are

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