Experimental and Analytical Investigations of Dynamic Characteristics of Magnetorheological and Nanomagnetorheological Fluid Film Journal Bearing

Abstract

The integrity and reliability of a rotor depend significantly on the dynamic characteristics of its bearings. Bearing design has been altered in many ways in order to achieve improvement in terms of damping and stiffness. A promising field in terms of vibration control and overall performance improvement for the journal bearings is the use of smart lubricants. Smart lubricants are fluids with controllable properties. A suitable excitation, such as an electric or a magnetic field, is used as a means of smart fluid properties control. Magnetorheological (MR) fluids consist one category of lubricants with controllable properties, thanks to magnetic particles inside the fluid volume. In this case of material, a magnetostatic field affects the apparent viscosity of the fluid by aligning the magnetic particles into chains. In this work, an MR fluid is produced. An MR fluid film bearing was constructed, which is capable of exciting the MR fluid. These bearing performances are examined experimentally and its dynamic properties are evaluated using an impact excitation method for an SAE-10 W lubricant as well as with the produced MR fluid both in its active and in its inactive state.