On the performance of foil thrust bearing with misaligned bearing runner

Abstract

Purpose Compliant foil thrust bearings are promising bearings for high-speed oil-free turbomachinery. However, most previous experimental and numerical approaches to investigate the performance of these bearings have ignored the effect of bearing runner misalignment. Therefore, this paper aims to evaluate the effects of static and dynamic angular misalignments of the bearing runner on the performance of a gas-lubricated foil thrust bearing. Design/methodology/approach The bearing runner is allowed a maximum angular misalignment that produces a minimum gas film thickness as low as 20 per cent of the nominal clearance. Then, the variations of bearing load carrying capacity, viscous power loss and stiffness and damping coefficients of the gas film with runner misalignment are thoroughly analyzed. The flow in the gas film is modeled with compressible Reynolds equation along with the Couette approximation technique, and the deformation of the compliant bearing is calculated with a robust analytical model. Small perturbations method is used to calculate the force and moment dynamic coefficients of the gas film. Findings The results show that misaligned foil thrust bearings are capable of developing a restoring moment sufficient enough to withstand the imposed misalignments. Furthermore, the enhanced hydrodynamic effect ensures a stable operation of the misaligned bearing, and the results highlighted the role of the compliant bearing structure to maintain foil bearing prominent features even at misaligned conditions. Originality/value The value of this study is the evaluation of the effects of runner angular misalignments on the static and dynamic characteristics of Generation II bump-type foil thrust bearing.