Dynamic Performance of Partially Orifice Porous Aerostatic Thrust Bearing

Abstract

The aerostatic thrust bearing’s performance under vibration brings certain changes in stiffness and stability, especially in the range of 100 to 10,000 Hz, and it is accompanied by significant increase in fluctuations due to the changes in frequency, and the size of the gas film damping. In this research work, an analysis is carried out to evaluate the impact of throttling characteristics of small size orifice on stiffness and stability optimization of aerostatic thrust bearings. There are two types of thrust bearing orifices such as: partial porous multiple orifice and porous thrust bearings and their effects on variations in damping and dynamic stiffness are evaluated. A simulation based analysis is carried out with the help of the perturbation analysis model of an aerostatic thrust bearing simulation by using FLUENT software (CFD). Therefore, two models of aerostatic thrust bearings—one with the porous and other with partial porous orifice are developed—are simulated to evaluate the effects of perturbation frequencies on the damping and dynamic stiffness. The results reveal a decrease in the amplitude of dynamics capacity with an increase in its frequency, as well as a decrease in the damping of partial porous aerostatic thrust bearings with an increase in the number of orifices. It also reveals an increase in the radius of an orifice with an increment of damping of bearing at the same perturbation frequency and, with an increase in orifice height, a corresponding decrease in the damping characteristics of bearings and in the dynamic stiffness and coefficient of damping of bearing film in the frequency range less than 100 Hz.