Presented below is the formulation of the Reynolds equation with a mass-conserving cavitation model developed recently in [20]. In general terms, the present cavitation model is equivalent to the Elrod–Adams model [22] and, in particular, to its more recent formulations [23,24], though it exhibits some subtle differ- ences concerning the continuum formulation and finite element treatment, see [20]. In particular, the present two-field formulation proves particularly suitable for the hanging-node mesh refinement technique used in the example of Section 4.2.