Abstract
Fluid film bearings operated with smart lubricants have been successfully used to enhance the lubricating performance. This article proposes a computational model to analyze the influence of magnetorheological lubricant on the performance of an annular recessed hybrid thrust bearing system. The governing modified Reynolds equation for circular thrust pad orifice compensated bearing is solved by finite element method. Further, for simulating the flow behavior of magnetorheological lubricant, a constitutive relation for the Bingham model Dave equation, has been used. The numerical results reveal that using magnetorheological lubricant improves the loading carrying capacity and damping coefficient of both annular and circular recess hybrid thrust bearings. Additionally, bearing lubricated with magnetorheological lubricant requires a lesser quantity of flow and hence less pumping power.
Highlights
The hydrostatic thrust pad bearings are commonly used in numerous applications due to their excellent characteristics as they are able to support heavy loads, provide high accuracy, and have high fluid film stiffness
The percentage variation in fluid film damping coefficient at a given value of restrictor design parameter (Cs2 = 0.25), for annular and circular recessed bearing lubricated with MR lubricant (I = 2 A) is 6.50% and 6.03%, respectively, as compared with correspondingly similar annular and circular recess hybrid thrust bearing operating with Newtonian lubricant
The present work investigates the combined influence of MR lubricant, recess configuration, and restrictor design parameter (Cs2) on the performance of an annular and circular recessed hybrid circular thrust pad bearing using an orifice restrictor
Summary
The hydrostatic thrust pad bearings are commonly used in numerous applications due to their excellent characteristics as they are able to support heavy loads, provide high accuracy, and have high fluid film stiffness. Lampaert and Ostayen[27] carried out an experimental, closed-form and numerical study to investigate the behavior of MR lubricant in the hydrostatic thrust bearing. The few available studies dealing with the use of MR lubricants in circular pad thrust bearings reported are mainly experimental in nature and are limited to evaluation of fluid film pressure and load-carrying capacity for circular recessed thrust pad bearing without comprehensively studying the bearing performance. The performance characteristics parameters for MR lubricated hybrid thrust pad bearing using orifice restrictor are obtained by the expressions as given below. A good agreement is found between the results computed from the present model and the reference study and a maximum deviation of 5.13% is seen
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