Effect of CSL on the characteristics of six-pocket hybrid irregular journal bearing

Abstract

This article examines the effect of couple stress lubricant on the characteristics of six-pocket hybrid irregular journal bearing system. Various shapes of irregular journals viz. barrel, bell-mouth, and undulated journal are considered in the analysis. To model the behavior of the flow of couple stress lubricant in bearing clearance space, the modified form of Reynolds equation is derived by using Stokes theory. The unknown pressure field in Reynolds equation is determined by using Galerkin's method. To illustrate the effect of couple stress lubricant on bearing system, the results for characteristics parameters of journal bearing system are presented. The results noticeably reveal that the presence of different geometrical irregularities in journal may ominously influence the performance of bearing system. Further, the use of couple stress lubricant instead of Newtonian lubricant offers a significant improvement in the value of bearing characteristic parameters of geometrically irregular hybrid journal bearing system viz. (Formula presented.), (Formula presented.) and (Formula presented.). © IMechE 2020.