Spectral element analysis of herringbone-grooved journal bearings with groove-ridge discontinuity

Many researchers have investigated the performance of herringbone-grooved journal bearings (HGJBs). However, few have yet mentioned the issue of film thickness discontinuities in HGJBs with a finite number of grooves. Most studies have involved the application of a finite difference method for discretization. The present work utilizes the spectral element method to calculate the pressure distribution and dynamic coefficients of HGJBs, in which the thickness of the fluid film changes abruptly in the groove-ridge region. Conservation of mass is adopted to solve the problem. Additionally, the present method can be adopted for grooves with curvy geometry. The numerical results were compared with the analytical solution for a one-dimensional slider bearing and an HGJB. It also shows that for the case of HGJB, the numerical result by the present method is more accurate than the numerical results found in the literature (Trans. ASME J. Tribol. 2000; 122: 103-109, Int. J. Numer. Meth. Heat Fluid Flow 2002; 12: 518-540). Furthermore, employing the present method with the Elrod algorithm can improve the accuracy of deriving loads of HGJBs when cavitation occurs. In addition, the result displays the efficiency of the present method by observing the CPU time. Therefore, the approach can be employed to compute the critical mass of a HGJB. The influence of changing groove angle, groove depth, groove width, and the eccentricity on the critical mass are discussed. Observing the variations in critical mass shows that when the eccentricity is small, a larger groove angle, a lower groove depth, and smaller groove width correspond to a higher critical mass of the HGJB. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.