On the finite load capacity in misaligned journal bearings

Resumen

We study some qualitative properties of a misaligned journal bearing. The device consists of two cylinders closely spaced: an inner rotating cylinder (the shaft) whose symmetry axis is not parallel to the one of the outer cylinder (the bearing). We consider the load capacity of the system, defined as the force exerted by the pressure. It is given by the integral of the pressure times the normal vector to the bearing surface. We obtain finite load capacity, even in the limit case when a point contact occurs. It was also verified by numerical simulations. We used an adapted Preconditioned Conjugate Gradient Method for solving the direct problem, preserving the A-orthogonality property of the search directions, even after a restarting process. The solution of the related inverse problem is based on an interior, trust-region algorithm. To validate the numerical proposal, the predicted pressure values at the bearing mid-plane, are compared to published experimental data.