Analysis of the performance of worn hydrodynamic water-lubricated plain journal bearings considering cavitation and elastic deformation

Abstract

This paper studies the lubrication performance of worn water-lubricated plain journal bearings including effects of cavitation and elastic deformation using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and fluid–structure interaction (FSI) method, aiming to provide design and analysis references for worn water-lubricated plain journal bearings. The results of the CFD and FSI method of this study are compared with the experimental ones and they are in good agreement. The validated model is used to study the influences of elastic deformation and different wear depth of bush on the performance of water-lubricated journal bearings with different length to diameter ratios. Finally, a method of determining the maximum allowable wear depth of water-lubricated plain journal bearings is proposed. The diagrams of this work could be used to design and analysis of worn plastic water-lubricated plain journal bearings.