PREDICTION OF THE THERMOELASTO-HYDRODYNAMIC PERFORMAMCE OF SPRING SUPPORTED THRUST PAD

Faculty Engineering, Mataria, Cairo, Helwan University, Egypt

On large thrust bearings, the geometry of the bearing pad surface is affected appreciably by

deformation. In a spring supported thrust pad bearing, the deformation caused by the

generated pressure and thermal gradient yields surface profiles of opposite shapes. The

thermoelastic analysis performed here makes it possible to determine the resultant film shape

of the thrust pad. The full-scale heat transfer is incorporated the analysis. The heat balance is

presented and the influence of Nusselt number of the hot oil carry over factor is considered.

The governing equations are converted by means of finite difference method and solved

numerically. An iterative procedure is used to solve the pressure and thermal equations

without recourse to an effective operating temperature. The deformation is estimated from

the solution of bending equation including the thermal term using matrix method. The

obtained results show that the improvement of the hydrodynamic action of the bearing as a

function of the thermal aspects.

Keywords: spring-supported thrust bearings, thermo-hydrodynamic lubrication, pad

deformation, finite difference method, matrix method.