Plain and Full Floating Bearing Simulations With Rigid Shaft Dynamics

This paper shows a promising predictive bearing model that can be used to reduce turbocharger bearing system development times. Turbocharger development is normally done by varying design parameters such as bearing geometry in a very time consuming experimentation process. Full Floating Bearings (FFB) are used in most automotive turbochargers and, due to emissions regulations, there has been a push towards downsizing engines and applying turbo charging to generate optimized engine solutions for both gasoline and diesel applications. In this paper the turbocharger rotor is regarded as being rigid, and the equations of motion are solved using the Bulirsch Stoer time integration scheme. These equations are solved simultaneously with the bearing model which is used also to determine nonlinear stiffness and damping coefficients. The bearings are solved using a Rigid Hydro Dynamic (RHD) Finite Difference Successive Over Relaxation (SOR) scheme of Reynolds equation that includes both rotational and squeeze velocity terms. However the solver can also consider bearing and rotor elasticity in a Multi-Body Dynamic (MBD) and Elasto-Hydro Dynamic (EHD) combined solution. Two bearing types have been studied, a plain grooved (PGB) and a full floating bearing (FFB) for comparative purposes. The mathematical models used are generic and suitable for whole engine bearing studies. The results in this paper show they are suitable for determining the onset of turbocharger bearing instability, and also the means by which bearing instability may be suppressed. The current study has investigated forced response with the combined effects of gravity and unbalance. It is worth noting that the effects of both housing excitation and aerodynamic excitation from the compressor and turbine can be easily accommodated, and will be the subject of a future paper. Other topics introduced here that will be explored further in the future include the effect of bearing and rotor flexibility in the MBD and EHD solution and the use of automatically generated stiffness and damping coefficients for any bearing geometry.