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.

The objective of the present paper is to study analytically the influence of wear on the performance of a capillary-compensated, four-pocket, hybrid journal bearing system operating in a turbulent regime by considering various geometric shapes of recess. The present study deals with bearings having four different geometric shapes of recess, i.e., square, circular, elliptical, and triangular recessed bearings. The wear on the bearing surface is modeled using Dufrane’s abrasive wear model. The Reynolds equation based on Constantinescu’s turbulent lubrication theory has been solved using finite element method along with a restrictor flow equation as a constraint together with appropriate boundary conditions. The numerically simulated results have been presented for a wide range of nondimensional external loads, wear depth parameters, and Reynolds numbers. The numerically simulated results suggest that the combined influence of wear, turbulence, and geometric shape of recess significantly affects the bearing performance. It has been observed that a triangular recessed bearing provides a greater value of minimum fluid film thickness when operating in a turbulent regime. It is also noticed that direct fluid film stiffness coefficients get reduced significantly when bearings operate in a turbulent regime compared with a laminar regime. Further, it is observed that from the viewpoint of fluid film stiffness, a square recessed bearing is found to be most suitable when operating in a turbulent regime.

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The present work aims to analytically study the performance of misaligned four-pocket, membrane compensated, hybrid journal bearing system operating with micropolar lubricant. In the present study, the flow characteristic of the lubricating oil containing additives and contaminants has been modeled using Erigen’s micropolar theory. The journal misalignment which may occur as a result of noncentral loading, improper assembly, shaft deflection due to elasticity and thermal distortions, etc. has been accounted for in the present study by defining a pair of misalignment parameters in vertical and horizontal directions (i.e., δ and σ).The modified Reynolds equation governing the flow of micropolar lubricant in the clearance space of a misaligned bearing has been solved using FEM and Newton Raphson method along with the appropriate boundary conditions. The numerically simulated results suggest that the effect of journal misalignment is to cause degradation in bearing performance, whereas the influence of micropolar effect of lubricant is to enhance the bearing performance. Therefore, it is imperative to account for the effect of misalignment and lubricant behavior during the design process in order to generate accurate bearing characteristics data.