Effect of Partial Texture on the Hydrodynamic Performance of Meso Scale Air Bearings for Mesoscale Turbo-Machines

Abstract

Abstract In this paper, the hydrodynamic performance of surface textured meso scale air bearing is evaluated. The effect of texture position is investigated for circular shaped texture. Partially textured zones are modeled along the circumferential direction of the bearing. For this, numerical simulation is carried out using COMSOL Multiphysics 5.2 software. The compressible Reynolds equation is solved using the finite element method for a thin film model. In comparison with plane bearing, the significant improvement in load capacity is observed for textured bearing. Full texturing has obtained 12.80% more load capacity than the plane bearing. Among different partial texture positions, the convergent zone (0°–180°) showed the most promising result. It has obtained 14.02% and 1.25% more load capacity than the plane and fully textured bearings. Moreover, the texture position in the bearing is found to be sensitive. However, surface texture at the outlet of active pressure zone is found to be ineffective for improving load capacity of the bearing.