Influence of Gas Feeding Position on the Performance of Radial-Inflow Hydrostatic Gas Ultra-Short Journal Bearings

To investigate the influence of gas feeding position on the performance of radial-inflow hydrostatic gas ultra-short (with a L/D value as 0.1) journal bearing two rotor-bearing system test rigs with two different feeding positions (central feeding and bottom feeding) for the journal bearing were designed. A rotor measurement system with an original rotational speed measurement program is built. Rotation experiments to measure the maximum rotational speed of rotors under different inlet pressure of journal bearing were conducted. It was found that, the rotor supported by the central feeding journal bearing worked better, and achieved a maximum rotational speed of 40000 rpm, (83.74m/s for the tip speed). While the test rig with bottom feeding journal bearing could not function well. To verify the reasons behind the failure mentioned above, the flow condition in the journal clearance and the rotor bottom clearance was analyzed by the CFD simulation. It shows that most of the journal bearing gas “leaks” into the rotor bottom clearance in the bottom feeding bearing test rig, disarranging the axial stability of the rotor and the normal functioning of the thrust bearings. In conclusion, the central feeding radial-inflow journal bearing is better than the bottom feeding one, for the better operability and higher maximum speed. And an ideal feeding position is supposed to make the journal bearing does not influence the axial stability of the rotor and the functioning of the thrust bearings.