Dynamic Coefficients of Tilting Pad Bearing by Perturbing the Turbulence Model

Tilting pad bearings are appropriate for the trend of high efficiency and reliability design of rotating machinery due to their high stability. The laminar and turbulent flow states exist in the lubricating oil film of high-speed and heavy-load tilting pad bearings simultaneously. By perturbing the multiple flow state lubrication model with a partial derivative method, together with the pad-pivot structural perturbations, the frequency-dependent stiffness and damping coefficients of tilting pad bearings, embracing the effect of dynamical variations of both turbulence and pressure-viscous, were numerically solved in this research. The importance of each perturbed variable was studied, and the results indicate that the perturbed film thickness included in turbulence coefficients perturbations is significant enough to be taken into account otherwise the equivalent stiffness coefficients will be obviously overestimated. Unlike the perturbed film thickness, the consideration of the perturbed viscosity is optional, because it makes the stiffness and damping coefficients larger at both laminar and turbulent flow states. For a simplified simulation and conservative prediction results, the perturbed viscosity can be neglected.