Efficient thrust bearing model for high-speed rotordynamic applications

Abstract

The dynamic behavior of rotor systems is influenced by thrust bearings. Therefore, a time-efficient model of oil-lubricated thrust bearings is introduced within this contribution. The areas of application for this bearing model are multibody simulations and more specifically high-speed rotordynamic systems. The Reynolds equation is solved at each pad of the bearing for the calculation of the fluid-film forces and moments, where the effect of misalignment of the shaft is also considered. For the solution of Reynolds equation the weak formulation is used, i.e. the Galerkin approach. This optimized bearing model results in heavily reduced simulation times especially if they are compared to the relatively large simulation times needed in co-simulations. The applied procedure can be easily implemented into commercial software and is flexible for investigating any bearing geometry and number of pads. Finally, the effect of the thrust bearing is studied in run-up simulations on an example rotor-bearing system.