Influence of Temperature on Textured Hydrodynamic Bearings

Abstract

The use of surface textures in hydrodynamic bearings is generally accepted as beneficial for lubricant film behavior. The need to use a mass-conservative model to describe cavitation when analyzing surface textures is well known in the literature. Even so, some studies are performed without taking this into account. On the other hand, the simultaneous effect of cavitation, textures and temperature increase on the bearing capacity is little discussed. This study presents the results of the application of a two-phase conservative model taking into account the impact of textures on the journal dynamics, the pressure field and the formation of cavitated regions.The bearing capacity of the bearing is evaluated when it is smooth and when it has textures placed on both the surface of the journal and the housing. The pressure profile obtained using a model based on the Navier-Stokes equations (through the OpenFOAM(R) platform) is also compared with the model proposed when calculating textured bearings.