Hydrodynamic lubrication analysis of water-lubricated bearings with partial microgroove considering wall slip

Abstract

Abstract In the present works, the Reynolds equation considering the partial wall slip is used to study the hydrodynamic lubrication performance of Partial Microgroove Water-lubricated Bearings (PMWB). Based on the developed model, the hydrodynamic performances of partial microgroove water-lubricated bearings with three microgroove distributions are systematically compared. The results show that herringbone-groove bearing yields the maximum load capacity, followed by spiral-groove bearings and straight-groove bearings. Furthermore, numerical results also show that wall slip can enhance the load capacity for all three partial microgroove distributions. In addition, the effects of the groove depth and the groove angle, eccentricity ratio and slip arrangement on the lubrication performance of the microgroove bearings are studied. The simulation results indicate that the eccentricity ratio significantly affects the lubrication performance of partial microgroove water-lubricated bearings considering wall slip, while the groove depth and the angle only slightly affect the lubrication performance. Moreover, the slip arrangement is less sensitive to the depth and angle of groove than eccentricity ratio. The parametric study demonstrates that the load capacity of PMWB will decline at a relatively large eccentricity ratio.