Analysis of Gas-Lubricated Bearings with a Coupled Boundary Effect for Micro Gas Turbine

Abstract

Due to the limitation of micro-machining technology, the bearing aspect ratio for a micro gas turbine is limited to a small value. Therefore, the load-carrying capacity of such bearing is inherently small. Thus, it is desirable to predict the load-carrying capacity as accurately as possible without being unnecessarily conservative. The direct numerical analysis of bearing characteristics was performed by mass conservation at coupled boundary. Journal bearing was numerically simulated for two cases −1) an externally pressurized bearing with four feeding holes and 2) a hydrodynamic bearing. Characteristics such as pressure distribution at the bearing surface, load-carrying capacity as a function of aspect ratio with a coupled boundary effects are investigated for micro gas turbine bearings. It is shown that a model of thrust and journal bearings coupled at boundary generally predicts a greater load-carrying capacity than uncoupled models. Presented as a Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers Paper at the STLE/ASME Triboiogy Conference in San Francisco, CA October 21–24, 2001