Engineering Optimum Design of Fluid-Film Lubricated Bearings

This study presents an engineering approach for optimizing performance of fluid-film lubricated bearings. Unconstrained nonlinear programming methods, lattice search and simplex method, were used as the optimization schemes to improve the merit of studied bearings with two or more design variables....

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Bibliographic Details
Published inTribology transactions Vol. 43; no. 3; pp. 377 - 386
Main Authors Wang, Nenzi, Ho, Chang-Li, Cha, Kuo-Chiang
Format Journal Article Conference Proceeding
LanguageEnglish
Published Colchester Taylor & Francis Group 01.01.2000
Taylor & Francis
Taylor & Francis Inc
Subjects
Applied sciences
Exact sciences and technology
Fluid Film Bearings
Friction, wear, lubrication
Machine components
Mechanical engineering. Machine design
Optimization
Slider Bearings
Carrying capacity
Optimization method
Multiobjective programming
Bearing(mechanics)
Elliptical configuration
Non linear programming
Optimization
Optimal design
Load capacity
Automatic generation
Plain bearing
Lubrication
Mesh generation
Tribology
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Summary:This study presents an engineering approach for optimizing performance of fluid-film lubricated bearings. Unconstrained nonlinear programming methods, lattice search and simplex method, were used as the optimization schemes to improve the merit of studied bearings with two or more design variables. The analysis of elliptical bearings shows high eccentricity ratio and two large pressure zones for high-speed stability can be obtained by maximizing film pressures in the upper and lower lobes. In this study, lattice method exhibits slightly more efficient search compared with that of simplex method in several two-variable optimum designs. The automatic mesh generation technique used in the pocket-shaped bearing analysis makes the numerical optimization as a flexible design tool. The effect of side flow restrictions on the load-carrying capacity of an optimized pocket-shaped slider bearing is clearly verified. The analysis of the aerostatic bearing explains an example of multi-objective minimization. A similar procedure can be easily adopted to analyze bearings with other profiles, or to maximize user-defined performance using more complicated models. Presented as a Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers Paper at the STLE/ASME Tribology Conference in Orlando, Florida, October 11-13, 1999
ISSN:1040-2004
1547-397X
DOI:10.1080/10402000008982353