Influence of Wear on the Performance of Multirecess Hydrostatic Journal Bearing Operating With Micropolar Lubricant

The objective of the present work is to study theoretically the influence of wear on the performance of four-pocket capillary-compensated hydrostatic journal bearing operating with micropolar lubricant. In the present study, the lubricant containing additives and contaminants is modeled as micropolar fluid. The modified Reynolds equation for micropolar lubricant is solved using finite element method along with capillary restrictor flow equation as a constraint together with appropriate boundary conditions. The performance characteristics of a capillary-compensated four-pocket worn hydrostatic journal bearing operating with micropolar lubricant have been presented for a wide range of values of nondimensional external load, wear depth parameter, and micropolar parameters. The simulated results have also been presented for two different loading arrangements. In arrangement I, the load line acts through centers of the pockets, whereas in arrangement II, the load line bisects the land between two pockets. The simulated results suggest that a bearing lubricated with lubricant having higher micropolar effect has better static and dynamic performance characteristics as compared with Newtonian lubricant but the bearing lubricated with lubricant having higher micropolar effect is predominantly affected by the wear vis a vis static characteristics parameters as compared with Newtonian lubricant for both loading arrangements. However, in the case of stiffness and damping coefficients, loading arrangement II shows a significant higher enhancement in the value of direct stiffness and damping coefficients in $z$-direction due to micropolar effect as compared with load arrangement I. And also, the effect of wear on stiffness and damping coefficients in $z$-direction for bearing operating with micropolar lubricant is of same order as Newtonian lubricant for the loading arrangement II. A similar behavior is observed for the case of stiffness and damping coefficients in $x$-direction for loading arrangement I.