A Numerical Procedure Based on the Boundary Element Method Analysis of the Archimedean Spiral Grooved Thrust Oil Bearing

Abstract

This paper presents a study which aims at developing a numerical procedure based on the boundary element method (BEM) to compute performance of a Spiral Grooved Thrust (SGT) oil bearing with varying groove depth. The SGT oil bearing has very complex boundary conditions, which can hinder the effective or sufficient applications of the Finite Difference Method (FDM) and the Finite Element Method (FEM) for the same purpose. In order to apply the BEM, the pressure control equation, i.e., the Reynolds equation, is first transformed into Laplace’s and Poisson’s forms of the equations. Discretization of the SGT oil bearing with a set of boundary elements is thus explained in detail, which also includes the handling of boundary conditions. To verify our method, the Archimedean SGT oil bearing is calculated with our proposed procedure; the results of the calculation are compared with the analytical solutions available in the literature. Moreover, the relationships between the performance and structural and operational parameters are discussed by means of the proposed numerical procedure. These relationships are not discussed elsewhere in the literature. Therefore, the work reported lays a solid foundation for a further work of the optimal design of the SGT oil bearing. [S0742-4787(00)00403-3]