Hydrodynamic Lubrication of Micro-Grooved Gas Parallel Slider Bearings with Parabolic Grooves

Yanjun Lu,Fuxi Liu,Yongfang Zhang

doi:10.5755/j01.mech.23.6.19850

Abstract

The hydrodynamic lubrication performance of micro-grooved gas parallel slider bearings with parabolic grooves is investigated in this paper. By using the multi-grid finite element method, the pressure distribution between a micro-grooved slider and a smooth slider is obtained. The geometric parameters of the parabolic grooves are optimized to maximize the average pressure under a given sliding speed. The numerical results show that geometric parameters such as groove depth, width, spacing, and orientation angle have an important influence on hydrodynamic pressure. Furthermore, the effect of sliding speed on hydrodynamic pressure is investigated under a given set of groove depths. It is observed that there is an optimum value of sliding speed to maximize the average pressure for any given groove depth and that the optimum value is dependent of the groove depth. The results of this study indicate that the average pressure could be improved by employing the optimized groove depth according to the practical sliding speed. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.mech.23.6.19850

Highlights

Opening micro-grooves in the surface of a mechanical component is thought to be an effective method for enhancing the performance of a mechanical component, such as a cylinder liner [1], piston ring [2], thrust bearing [3], journal bearing [4], or slider bearing [5]
When the real topography of the cylinder liner was considered, Mezghani et al [11] presented a friction model to investigate the friction performance of a micro-grooved piston ring-cylinder liner combination. They showed that the friction coefficient of the piston ring-cylinder liner combination could decrease by optimizing the geometric parameters of the microgrooves
Parabolic grooves are employed to evaluate the hydrodynamic pressure of micro-grooved gas parallel slider bearings, and special attention is paid to the effects of sliding speed, groove width, depth, spacing, and orientation angle on average pressure

Summary

Introduction

Opening micro-grooves in the surface of a mechanical component is thought to be an effective method for enhancing the performance of a mechanical component, such as a cylinder liner [1], piston ring [2], thrust bearing [3], journal bearing [4], or slider bearing [5]. The effect of micro-grooves on hydrodynamic pressure has been systematically analyzed for microgrooved oil-lubricated parallel slider bearings [14, 15]. No investigations detailing the effect of microgrooves on hydrodynamic pressure seem to exist in the available literature for micro-grooved gas parallel slider bearings. Fu et al [15] have employed parabolic grooves to evaluate the effects of minimum film thickness, groove width, depth, spacing, and orientation angle on the hydrodynamic pressure of micro-grooved oil-lubricated parallel slider bearings. Parabolic grooves are employed to evaluate the hydrodynamic pressure of micro-grooved gas parallel slider bearings, and special attention is paid to the effects of sliding speed, groove width, depth, spacing, and orientation angle on average pressure

Theory

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Results and discussions

Conclusions

Summary