Static Characteristics of High-Speed Water-Lubricated Journal Bearing Considering Turbulence and Cavitation Effects

Abstract

The water-lubricated bearings tend to be turbulent and cavitating when running at a high speed. However, the modeling of the water-lubricated bearing considering the turbulence and cavitation effects has not been studied thoroughly. For high-speed water-lubricated journal bearings, a turbulent flow model considering cavitation effect was proposed on the basis of two-phase flow theory. The simulation was conducted to show the influence of turbulence and cavitation effects on the static characteristics of the water-lubricated journal bearing. The proposed model was validated with the test by using a self-developed experimental setup. The result shows that the turbulence effect has a great impact on static characteristics of bearing, and cavitation effect significantly affects the minimum film thickness and leakage flowrate, while the friction torque is hardly affected by the cavitation effect.