Influence of wear on the performance of 2-lobe slot entry hybrid journal bearings

Abstract

– In the present paper, the influence of wear on the performance of 2-lobe slot entry restrictor bearing has been investigated theoretically. The equation of fluid flow field has been solved by using Galerkin’s technique of FEM. In this study, Dufrane’s wear model has been used to consider the change in bush geometry due to wear. The performance of 2-lobe slot entry restrictor bearing is studied for both symmetric and asymmetric slot configurations. The simulated results of the study indicate that the wear defect substantially changes the performance of 2-lobe slot entry journal bearing systems. A proper choice of bearing geometry and bearing configuration (12 slots and 6 slots per row) may partially compensate the loss occurred due to wear.