Global sensitivity analysis of static characteristics of tilting-pad journal bearing to manufacturing tolerances

A tiny difference between nominal dimension and actual processing dimension in the range of manufacturing tolerance can vary the performance of journal bearing. For minimizing this variation, sensitivity analysis is usually conducted. In present paper, the variance-based global sensitivity analysis was introduced to deal with the uncertainty quantification problem for a five-pad journal bearing. By using Fourier Amplitude Sensitivity Test (FAST) method, the first-order sensitivity indices of static characteristics including capacity, power loss and inlet flow were analyzed and evaluated for five normal distributed processing parameters: pad internal radius, shaft radius, pivot radius, pivot position and pad angular extent. The FAST method was proved perfectly suited to the bearing model. The quantitative sensitivities of output to each input parameter were obtained.