Experimental Investigations on Temperature and Frictional Behaviors of Textured Journal Bearings

Abstract

Experimental work provides a greater insight into the performances of journal bearings under actual operating conditions. Moreover, experimental findings also provide a platform for validation of numerical model based results and helps to point out suggestions needed to pursue further research. This article has been written in the direction of providing few factual experimental observations using the fabricated bush bearings having conventional, full textured (0⁰ to 360⁰) and half textured (0⁰ to 180⁰ and 180⁰ to 360⁰) bores. The textured bores involving cylindrical dimples were fabricated using electric discharge machining (EDM). Experiments were conducted at two loads (load per unit projected area = 0.3 and 1.5 MPa) and two journal speeds (2 and 5 m/s) employing SAE-30 lubricating oil. The experimental results revealed that the bearing with textures lying in the converging zone (0⁰ to 180⁰) yielded maximum reduction in coefficient of friction as compared to conventional (smooth) and other textured cases considered herein. Temperature rise with this textured bearing (0⁰ to 180⁰) also found less among all the textured bore cases.