Experimental Verification of a New Model for Transition Flow of Thin Films in Long Journal Bearings

Abstract

A new model for predicting the flow behavior in long journal bearing films in the transition regime (Taylor and wavy vortex regimes) was previously proposed by the authors. This paper presents the experimental verification. A comparison between the experimental and numerical results of the Torque–Speed graphs is presented with good agreement between the numerical and experimental data for the Couette, Taylor and pre-wavy regimes. In the wavy and turbulent regime, the magnitude of the numerically obtained data is larger than the corresponding measured torques, but the difference is confined to below 14%. A comparison between experimental and numerical flow patterns is also presented. The results match well in general, except that experimentally, a pre-wavy regime was identified. The latter is characterized by the disappearance of the Taylor vortices, while numerically the Taylor vortices are only distorted and the wavy vortices are formed in this regime.