Study on lubrication performance of journal bearing with multiple texture distributions

Abstract

The lubrication performance of journal bearings with different sorts of uniformly distributed micro-spherical textures are studied in this paper. Geometries and dynamic models of journal bearings with pure concave/convex textures are developed. The validity of the proposed models is verified against the oil film pressure distribution from the literature. The effects of geometry parameters (the texture depth and the area density) on the load capacity and the friction coefficient of the bearing are analyzed and discussed. Results indicate that: the bearing load capacity is reduced by the concave spherical texture, but enhanced by the convex texture; both the concave and convex textures have a very slight influence on the friction coefficient. Aiming to further improve the bearing lubrication performance, a novel concave-convex composite texture is proposed and modelled. Results show that the composite texture can significantly improve both the load capacity and the friction coefficient, because the concave spherical segments among the convex ones protect the oil film from rupture near the main load region. The oil film region is expanded by the composite texture as well.