An ESA‐CFD combined method for dynamic analysis of the aerostatic journal bearing

Abstract

AbstractFor the aerostatic journal bearing with orifice‐type restrictor, it is difficult to analyse the bearing performances because of the complex air film geometry. In the present work, based on the traditional engineering simplification algorithm (ESA) for bearing performances calculation, an ESA‐CFD combined method is proposed by integrating ESA method with modern computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation technique, where both advantages of the ESA and CFD methods are retained. With this approach, both static and dynamic performances of the journal bearing can be analyzed with a high level of accuracy and low computational cost. As an example, an engineering journal bearing is considered and its performances are analyzed. The influences of bearing parameters on dynamic performances are particularly discussed, and meanwhile, the calculation accuracy is verified by conducting experiments. The proposed ESA‐CFD combined method can provide an efficient way for engineering application in design of aerostatic journal bearing, especially for the design optimization.