Numerical analysis of the dynamic performance of aerostatic thrust bearings with different restrictors

Abstract

This study utilizes a dynamic mesh technology to investigate the dynamic performance of aerostatic thrust bearings with orifice restrictor, multiple restrictors, and porous restrictor. An experiment, which investigates the bearing static load capacity, was carried out to verify the calculation accuracy of dynamic mesh technology. Further, the impact of incentive amplitude, incentive frequency, axial eccentricity ratio, and non-flatness on the bearing dynamic performance was also studied. The results show incentive amplitude effect can be ignored at the condition of amplitude less than 5% film thickness, while the relationship between dynamic characteristics and incentive frequency presented a strong nonlinear relationship in the whole frequency range. The change law of dynamic stiffness and damping coefficient for porous restrictor was quite different from orifice restrictor and multiple restrictors. The bearing dynamic performance increased significantly with the growth of axial eccentricity ratio, and the surface non-flatness enhanced dynamic performance of aerostatic thrust bearings.