《Journal Bearing》.pdfVIP

International Journal of Rotating Machinery , 10(3): 227–232, 2004 c Copyright Taylor Francis Inc. ISSN: 1023-621X print / 1542-3034 online DOI: 10.1080/10236210490426370 Cavitation Effects on the Stability of a Submerged Journal Bearing Jerzy T. Sawicki Rotor-Bearing Dynamics and Diagnostics Laboratory, Fenn College of Engineering, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA T. V. V. L. N. Rao Mechanical Group, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India an appearance of air/gas cavities. Groper and Etsion (2001) the- A computational procedure for the mechanism of shear oretically investigated the (1) shear of cavity bubble by the lubri- between the liquid sublayer and air cavity in the cavitation cant flow attached to the journal surface and (2) diffusion of the zone of a submerged journal bearing is presented here. Using dissolved gases into and out of lubricant. Their results indicate the mass conservation principle, Elrod’s universal equation that the mechanism of diffusion of gases is inadequate to ex- is modified to take into consideration the shear of the air plain the experimental observation of cavity pressures while the cavity in the cavitation region. Results of steady state and mechanism of shear of gas cavity accurately predicts the cavity transient response for the submerged journal bearing us- shape compared to cavity pressures. Experimental investigations ing the present approach are compared with the universal (Etsion and Ludwig, 1982; Braun and Hendricks, 1984) in the equation based on the striated flow in the cavitation region. cavitation region of submerged journal bearings also reveal the At steady state, the angular extent of cavitation region pre-