Comparison of the Lubrication Performances of Water-Lubricated and Oil-Lubricated Plain Journal Bearings

Abstract

Water-lubricated bearings have attracted increasing attention in recent years because of their environmental sustainability, simplified design, low cost, good cooling performance and low coefficient of friction. To show the characteristic of water lubrication more clearly, this paper quantitatively compares the lubrication performances of water-lubrication plain journal bearing and oil-lubricated plain journal bearing using CFD method. Bearing length, friction coefficients, power losses and temperature rises are obtained under the same working condition. Results show that water-lubricated bearing needs to be 3.4 times longer than oil-lubricated bearing, but its friction coefficient and power loss are only 11.7% of those of oil-lubricated bearing and its maximum temperature rise is less than 2 K, much lower than 96.76 K corresponding to oil lubrication.