Analytical and Experimental Study of Externally Pressurized Air Lubricated Journal Bearings

Abstract

A simplified analysis for calculating the characteristics, such as stiffness, flow, and load of an externally pressurized gas journal bearing, is obtained through a standard one-dimensional flow approach altered to take into account the effect of circumferential pressure variations. From this analysis, it is revealed that bearing stiffness has an optimum which, it is further shown, can be chosen through a proper selection of bearing design parameters, such as radial clearance, upstream resistor, and supply pressure. As the analysis is developed each assumption is experimentally verified. The final predictions of the analysis are also verified. It is felt that the analysis is sufficiently simple to allow comparison of many different bearing configurations, while sufficiently complete to compare very well against experimental measurements in all respects. A comparison is made between the recessed and nonrecessed bearing.