Fluid Film Bearings and CFD Modeling: A Review

Abstract

This paper is a review of the literature about CFD modeling and analysis of journal, thrust, and aerostatic bearings; the advantages and disadvantages of each are specified, and the bearing problems that have been analyzed are discussed to improve their designs and performance. A CFD transient analysis of journal bearings was conducted using the dynamic mesh method together with movement algorithms while keeping a structured mesh of a good quality in the ANSYS Fluent software to determine the equilibrium position of the journal and calculate the dynamic coefficients. Finally, areas of opportunity for analyzing and designing fluid film bearings to improve their performance are proposed.