CFD Investigation of Influences of Reverse Textures on Bearing Surface of a Journal Bearing

It has always been the subject of interest and research to find out most efficient method to minimize the frictional loss of any mating surface in any mechanism. But it has been identified that only improvement of lubricating material cannot help much. For this reason research on design modification was started and still going on to optimize the design of mating surfaces so that losses be minimum. In this paper a research has been done on the design of bearing surface of a journal bearing. Journal bearing is a very important part of many machines specially turbines used in Power generation and rolling mills used in steel making sectors. By modifying the design of the bearing surface, load carrying capacity of a journal bearing can be increased and thus its performance can be improved. It is proved by many researches that, by putting cylindrical dimples on bearing surface the performance of a journal bearing can be increased. To measure the performance of a journal bearing three parameters are usually used. Those are, (i) Load Carrying Capacity, (ii) Frictional resisting force and (iii) Ratio of Frictional resistance and Load carrying capacity, which is called Frictional coefficient. In this work a modification has been done on the work of Cupillard. Cupillard considered only the cylindrical dimples for the sake of manufacturing simplicity, but in this work a different configuration of dimple has been considered and its influence on bearing performance has been studied. It is proved by many researches that, by putting cylindrical dimples on bearing surface the performance of a journal bearing can be increased. To measure the performance of a journal bearing three parameters are usually used. Those are, (i) Load Carrying Capacity, (ii) Frictional resisting force and (iii) Ratio of Frictional resistance and Load carrying capacity, which is called Frictional coefficient. In this work a modification has been done on the work of Cupillard at all (reference [۹]). Cupillard considered only the cylindrical dimples for the sake of manufacturing simplicity, but in this work a different configuration of dimple has been considered and its influence on bearing performance has been studied.

Keywords:

Journal bearing , Textured surface , Friction , Load carrying capacity , Cavitation