Influence of couple stress lubricant on the performance of textured two-lobe slot-entry hybrid journal bearing system

This paper concerns with theoretical investigation to predict the combined influence of textured surface and couple stress lubricant behavior on the performance of circular/two-lobe slot-entry hybrid journal bearing. The flow of incompressible couple stress lubricant through the clearance of a textured journal bearing system is governed by the modified Reynolds equation. The modified Reynolds equation has been derived on the basis of Stokes micro-continuum theory and is solved using a finite element method technique for computing the bearing performance characteristics parameters. The static and dynamic characteristics of circular/two-lobe slot-entry hybrid journal bearing have been computed for textured and non-textured bearings with influence of couple stress lubricant. The present study indicates that the influence of couple stress lubricant behavior is significantly more on the values of fluid film stiffness coefficients ((S) over bar (11), (S) over bar (22)), critical mass of journal ((M) over bar (C)), and stability threshold speed margin (omega(th)) for textured surface than that of non-textured surface in case of a slot-entry hybrid journal bearing system.