Abstract
The paper presents a numerical simulation study on hydrostatic thrust air bearings to assess the load capacity, compressed air consumptions, and the dynamic response. Finite Difference Method (FDM) and Finite Volume Method (FVM) are combined to solve the non-linear Reynolds equation to find the pressure distribution of the air bearing gas film and the total loading capacity of the bearing. The influence of design parameters on air film gap characteristics, including the air film thickness, supplied pressure, depth of the groove and external load, are investigated based on the proposed FDM model. The simulation results show that the thrust air bearings with a groove have a higher load capacity and air consumption than without a groove, and the load capacity and air consumption both increase with the depth of the groove. Bearings without the groove are better damped than those with the grooves, and the stability of thrust bearing decreases when the groove depth increases. The stability of the thrust bearings is also affected by their loading.
Highlights
Hydrostatic air film thrust bearings are very important machine elements to support lightly loaded, high speed rotating machinery such as spindles, gas expanders, compressors, and micro gas turbines
In a high speed rotational system, such as a spindle, pressure fluctuations and bearing air film variations in thrust bearings caused by various factors, such as different loads and rotating speeds, induce excitations of the bearing dynamic response, which can lead to bearing instability
The load capacity, compressed air consumptions, and the dynamic response of hydro-static thrust air bearings are investigated based on the proposed model
Summary
Hydrostatic air film thrust bearings are very important machine elements to support lightly loaded, high speed rotating machinery such as spindles, gas expanders, compressors, and micro gas turbines. Developing an effective tool to analysis the dynamic responses as well as the static characteristics of hydrostatic thrust air bearings is of great importance for designing high quality and high speed rotational machinery. Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd comparisons of different methods with respect to computational time and stability He suggested different stopping criterion in an iterative process and analysed the truncation error of numerical approaches [6,7,8]. A numerical model of hydrostatic thrust air bearings is proposed combining the advantages of FDM and FVM for solving the Reynolds Equation. The effect of several design and working parameters on air film characteristics, including the air film thickness, supplied pressure, depth of the groove and external load, are investigated based on the proposed model
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