Hydrodynamic Lubrication of Partially Textured Gas Parallel Slider Bearings with Orientation Ellipse Dimples

Abstract

The hydrodynamic lubrication performance of partially textured gas parallel slider bearings with orientation ellipse dimples is investigated in this paper. By using the multigrid finite element method, the pressure distribution between a partially textured slider and a smooth slider is obtained. The geometric parameters of the ellipse dimples are optimized to maximize the average pressure under a given sliding speed. The numerical results show that geometric parameters such as orientation angle, depth, slender ratio, and area density have an important impact on hydrodynamic pressure. Besides, the effect of textured fraction on hydrodynamic pressure is investigated under a given sliding speed. It is observed that the optimum textured fraction for maximizing the average pressure is dependent on the sliding speed.