Investigation of the tribological performance of heterogeneous slip/no-slip journal bearing considering thermo-hydrodynamic effects

Abstract

The slip boundary has an important influence on hydrodynamic journal bearing. However, less attention has been paid to the positive effect of slip on thermal behaviour. In this study, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis investigating the thermo-hydrodynamic (THD) characteristics of heterogeneous slip/no-slip bearings running under steady, incompressible, and turbulent conditions is presented. A comprehensive analysis is made to investigate the THD behaviours of heterogeneous slip/no-slip bearings in terms of lubricant pressure, temperature distribution, volume fraction of vapor, and load-carrying capacity when they are running under different shaft rotational speeds. The multiphase cavitation model is adopted to represent the real operational condition of the journal bearing. Numerical results show that the load-carrying capacity of the heterogeneous slip/no-slip bearing can be significantly increased by up to 100% depending on the rotational speed. It is also observed that there is an optimal journal rotational speed for maximizing the load-carrying capacity. An insightful new finding is revealed in a numerical framework, wherein it is found that by introducing the heterogeneous slip/no-slip pattern, the maximum temperature can be reduced by up to 25% in comparison with a conventional bearing.