Dynamic stability of micropolar lubricated hydrodynamic offset-halves journal bearings

Abstract

The plain circular journal bearings are not found to be stable by researchers when used in high speed rotating machineries. Hence, extensive research in the study of stability characteristics of non-circular bearings or lobed bearings assumed importance, of late. Present article deals with the stability analysis of non-circular offset bearing by taking selected set of input and output parameters. Modified Reynolds equation for micropolar lubricated rigid journal bearing system is solved using finite element method. Two kinds of input parameters namely, offset factors (0.2, 0.4) and aspect ratios (1.6, 2.0) have been selected for the study. The important output characteristics such as load, critical mass, whirl frequency ratio, and threshold speed are computed and plotted for various set of values of input parameters. The results obtained indicate that micropolar lubricated circular offset bearing is highly stable for higher offset factor and higher aspect ratio.