Numerical Simulation of Oil Film State and Mechanical Performance of Heavy Hydrostatic Thrust Bearings

The finite element method (FEM) is applied in the numerical simulation of heavy hydrostatic thrust bearings to study the influence of pressure and temperature on bearing deformation. The pressure distribution and the temperature distribution are obtained by solving the Reynolds equation and the energy equation. The bearing deformations caused by temperature and pressure are computed by imposing the two obtained distributions on the bearing. Because the pressure distribution and the temperature distribution are influenced by the oil film thickness and the oil film thickness is influenced by the bearing deformation, the numerical simulation is a process of iteration. The numerical results demonstrate that, in heavy hydrostatic thrust bearings, the thermal deformation and the mechanical deformation are both significant and can not be neglected. The influence of operation parameters on the anti-capsizing capability of heavy hydrostatic thrust bearings is also discussed. The obtained results reveal that, the anti-capsizing moment of the bearing increases with the decrease of the central thickness of the oil film.