Operating characteristics of heavy loaded cylindrical journal bearing with variable axial profile

Abstract

During the operation of turbounit its bearings displace as a result of heat elongation of bearings supports. It changes the static deflection line of rotor determined during assembly of the turbounit, causing an increase in the stresses on the bearing edges and a decrease in the dynamic state of the machine. One of possibilities to avoid the edge stresses is to apply the bearings with variable axial profile, e.g. hyperboloidal, convex profile in the axial cross-section of bearing. Application of journal bearings with hyperboloidal profile allows to extend the bearing operation range without the stress concentration on the edges of bush. These bearings successfully carry the extreme load in conditions of misaligned axis of journal and the bush eliminating the necessity of using self-aligning bearings. Operating characteristics of bearing include the resulting force, attitude angle, oil film pressure and temperature distributions, minimum oil film thickness, maximum oil film temperature. In literature there is a lack of data on the operating characteristics of heavy loaded hyperboloidal journal bearings operating at the conditions of adiabatic oil film and static equilibrium position of the journal. For the hyperboloidal bearing the operating characteristics have been obtained. Different values of length to diameter ratio, assumed shape and inclination ratio coefficients have been assumed. Iterative solution of the Reynolds', energy and viscosity equations was applied. Adiabatic oil film, laminar flow in the bearing gap as well as aligned and misaligned orientation of journal in the bush were considered.