Numerical Analysis of the Effect of Different Surface Textures on the Steady State Characteristics of Tilting Pad Journal Bearings

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of three different types of textures on the steady-state performance of tilting pad journal bearings. It has been shown that surface texture can improve the steady-state performance of bearings, but there are few studies on tilting pad journal bearings. This paper solves the thermal elastohydrodynamic (TEHD) numerical model of tilting pad journal bearings using the central difference method and the bi-conjugate gradient stabilization algorithm. The results agree well with the simulation results proving the model's effectiveness. The effects of ellipsoidal, cylindrical, and square textures on the steady-state performance of tilting pad journal bearings are studied and compared with non-textured bearings. The influence of texture on oil film pressure, oil film maximum temperature, and bearing capacity was analysed. The results show that the square texture can significantly enhance the steady-state performance of tilting pad journal bearings, and the effects of ellipsoidal texture and cylindrical texture are basically the same, which provides a reference for surface texture research on tilting pad journal bearings.