Rough Porous Circular Convex Pad Slider Bearing Lubricated with a Magnetic Fluid

Abstract

An endeavor has been made to discuss the performance of a transversely rough porous circular convex pad slider bearing in the presence of a magnetic fluid lubricant. Jenkins model for the flow of magnetic fluid has been adopted. The bearing surfaces are assumed to be transversely rough and the transverse surface roughness of the bearing surfaces is characterized by a stochastic random variable with non-zero mean, variance and skewness. With the aid of suitable boundary conditions the associated stochastically averaged Reynolds’ equation is solved to obtain the expression for pressure distribution resulting in the calculation of load carrying capacity. The computed values of dimensionless load carrying capacity are displayed in graphical forms. The results make it clear that the bearing working with magnetic fluid as a lubricant records a better performance than that of an identical bearing working with a conventional lubricant. The negatively skewed roughness induces increased load carrying capacity which goes a long way in mitigating the adverse effect of the standard deviation and porosity, taking recourse to suitable values of magnetization parameter. The bearing can support a load even when there is no flow which is not true in the case of conventional lubricant. This article suggests some measures for extending the bearing’s life period. It is interestingly note that the film thickness ratio turns in a marginally better performance as compared to most of recent studies. In spite of the fact that the roughness affects the system adversely, a companison of this investigation with few earlier ones indicates that the overall performance is fairly improved here.