CFD Analysis of Thin Film Lubricated Journal Bearing

The three dimensional CFD analysis were investigated regarding the performance characteristics of a thin film lubricated journal bearing. In the existing literature, several numerical analyses had been reported. Most of these analyses used two dimensional Reynolds equations to find the pressure distribution in the lubricant flow by neglecting the pressure variation across the film thickness. Besides that, most researchers only consider laminar flow. In this paper, three turbulent models which are the Standard k-epsilon model, Realizable k-epsilon model and Reynolds Stress Model (RSM) had been used to simulate the characteristics of a plain journal bearing. Three dimensional models had been simulated using ANSYS Fluent software package to accurately predict the performance of the three turbulent models on the journal bearing analysis. Design parameter like static pressure, wall shear stress and dimensionless load carrying capacity were considered and transient analysis was carried out for the analysis with different L/D ratio of 0.25, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0. The results showed that for the cases of thin film lubricated journal bearing, the turbulent models did not give any significant to the simulation results. However for the case of complex geometry, another simulation needs to be conduct to determine an effect of the different turbulent models in the simulation of the lubricant in bearing system. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.