Performance Improvement Of Water-Lubricated Thrust Pad Bearing Operating With The Turbulent Flow Using A New Micro-Pocket Design

This paper reports an explorations carried out on the performance parameters (minimum film thickness, friction coefficient, and bearing dynamic coefficients) of a sector-shaped pad thrust bearing lubricated with water employing a new pocket design and considering the effects of turbulence and cavitation. The Reynolds equation accounting the mass-conservation effects has been discretized employing the finite element method for its solution. The effects of new pocket's attributes (pocket depth, circumferential extents, and radial extents) have been investigated for establishing their optimum values. The performance behaviours achieved with new pocketed pad bearing have been compared with the findings of the plain pad (without any pocket), and rectangular (conventional) pocketed bearing.