Performance of Two Lobe Multirecess Hybrid Journal Bearing Compensated With Capillary Restrictor

Multirecess hydrostatic/hybrid journal bearings are being used in many applications owing to their excellent characteristics. The Noncircular journal bearing configurations too are quite frequently used in high speed machinery as they are efficient, less costly and provide better shaft stability. The Two lobe bearing (elliptical bearing) are among the commonly used noncircular journal bearing configuration. The multilobe multirecess hybrid journal bearings have been developed to combine the features of noncircular and circular hybrid journal bearing configurations. In the present work a theoretical investigation of a two lobe multirecess hydrostatic/hybrid journal bearing system have been carried out. The multilobe journal bearing configuration is designed as an arc of the circle with the centre points placed on the symmetry line of the single lobe. The journal offset has been accounted by defining an offset factor ‘δ’. The finite element method has been used to solve the Reynolds equation governing the flow of lubricant in the clearance space of the journal bearing system. The bearing static and dynamic performance characteristics have been presented for the various values of the offset factors (0.75, 1, 1.25 and 1.50) for hybrid mode of operation of the bearing. The simulated results of the studies reveals that, a two lobe recessed hybrid journal bearing provides an improved performance in respect of fluid film stiffness and damping coefficients as compared to that of circular recessed journal bearing. It has been observed that for a multilobe bearing having offset factor more than one has a favourable effect on the dynamic performance characteristics of the two lobe bearing.