An Application of Short Bearing Theory to Dynamic Characteristic Problems of Turbulent Journal Bearings

The dynamic characteristic problems of turbulent journal bearings are theoretically analyzed. The oil film forces considering the turbulent effects are analytically obtained under the short bearing assumption. The linearized stability analysis is developed for a perfectly rigid rotor supported horizontally in the two identical aligned oil film journal bearings and the whirl onset velocities for rotor-bearing systems are determined for various Reynolds numbers. In addition, the nonlinear equations of motion for rotor-bearing systems are solved by the improved Euler’s method and the journal center trajectories are examined for both cases with and without out-of-balance forces. The results obtained from the short bearing theory are compared with those from the finite bearing theory for the length-to-diameter ratio λ = 0.25 and 0.5. It is found that the turbulence has significant effects on the dynamic behavior of rotor-bearing systems and the short bearing theory has an advantage of reducing a computation time required for the calculation of journal center trajectories with an acceptable accuracy.