Wear, 61(1980) 9 - 20 @ Elsevier Sequoia S.A.

, Lausanne - Prihted in the Netherlands

ANALYSIS OF HYDROSTATIC THRUST BEARINGS UNDER NONAXISYMMETRIC OPERATION

Z. S. SAFAR Department (U.S.A.) (Received

and C. D. MOTE, Jr. of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, Calif. 94720

June 29,1979)

Summary Analyses of the pressure distribution, the load capacity and the lubricant flow rate for.a laminar flow hydrostatic thrust bearing in a symmetrical operation are presented. In a symmetrical operation the supported surface rotates about an axis parallel to but offset from the bearing axis. These bearings are commonly used as circular saw guides in the forest products industry. Bearing pressure and load and the lubricant flow are strong functions of a nondimensional bearing number X, the film thickness variation E and the bearing offset L from the rotation axis.

1. Introduction The load capacity and operating specifications of a laminar flow hydrostatic thrust bearing on rotating surfaces have been studied extensively for axisymmetric operation [ 1 - 61. Axisymmetric operation here refers to the coincidence of the bearing axis, point 0 in Fig. 1, with the axis of rotation of a rotating surface, point C in Fig. 1. In many applications, however, it can be either impossible or undesirable to position the thrust bearing for axisymmetric operation. This is the case with circular saw guides used extensively throughout the forest products industry. In general a saw guide is a hydrodynamic or hydrostatic bearing using a combination of air, water and/or oil as the working fluids acting on band saw or circular saw blade surfaces. These guides are normally circular in cross section, and because of the constraints of the workpiece and machine structure are normally positioned asymmetrically on the blade surface as shown in Fig. 1. The purposes of these guides are to position the blade relative to the workpiece, to stiffen the blade against lateral processed induced forces and to reduce blade vibration and noise. Even though saw guides are used extensively throughout the world-wide industry, no analyses of the guide force

10

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the asymmetrical hydrostatic

thrust bearing.

and operation are available in the literature. No asymmetrical thrust bearing analyses are known to us. In this paper an approximate analysis of an incompressible laminar flow hydrostatic thrust bearing in asymmetrical operation is presented. The analysis is carried forward for a film thickness varying harmonically in the circumferential direction with arbitrary amplitude and orientation. Attention is directed to the dependence of the bearing design, operating specifications and orientation on the load capacity, lubricant flow rate, pressure distribution and center of pressure.

2. Analysis Analyses of the hydrostatic thrust bearing load-carrying capacity, lubricant flow rate and pressure distribution are presented in this section. The bearing major axis is offset from the plane surface axis of rotation as shown in Fig. 1, and a restricted class of film thickness variation will be allowed. The major assumptions restricting the results of this analysis are as follows: (1) the lubricant inertia forces in the film are small compared with the viscous forces; (2) the lubricant supply pressure ps is constant; (3) pressure variations across the film thickness are negligible; (4) the lubricant is incompressible; (5) the dominant film thickness velocity gradients are normal to the plane surface and all other velocity gradients are relatively small and negligible; (6) the plane surface is not vibrating normal to the bearing face; (7) the lubricant flow is laminar with Re G 400.

11

The continuity Fig. 1 are

and momentum

equations for the bearing shown in

(1)
ap -= a2u

ar

%F
IJ-

(2) a2v az2

1 ap --=

r ae
0

(3)

ap -=
a2

(4)

The velocity boundary conditions at the bearing and plane surfaces are u(r, e, 0) = U(r, 13) v(r$,O) = V(r, e) w(r, e,O) = u(r, 8, h) = (r, 8, h) = w(r, 8, h) = 0 where the surface velocities are deduced from the parameters given in the Nomenclature and in Fig. 1 to be U(r, 8,~) = i2 L sin e V(r, 8.2) = S2L(r/L + cos e) The film velocity satisfying momentum and (3) and invoking assumption (3): u(r, e) = v(r, e ) = Satisfaction of the integrated continuity r~(~r~)+$(~~)=6~rLl(cose and the conditions P(r, 0) = Hr. 0 + 2~)
~(a, e) =ps pm e) = pa (9)

(5)

(6)

is obtained by integrating eqns. (2)

--

requires that the pressure satisfies +~)~+r,ke~/ (6)

12

After transforming the variables to render eqns. (8) and (9) dimensionless, the boundary value problem governing the pressure distribution in the thrust bearing during asymmetric operation is given by

(10)
p(r,e)=p(r;,e p<a, e) = 1 j(l,e)=o The dimensionless variables are defined in the Nomenclature. The film thickness h(r, 0) examined is the harmonic profile h= 1 --esin(e +2n) (11)

-e,)

(12)

of arbitrary amplitude E and orientation 0 e. If E = 0, i.e. constant film thickness, the pressure distribution for the hydrostatic bearing governed by eqns. (10) and (11) is axisymmetric and independent of both the off-set E and the bearing number h . Let j(r, 6 ) be represented in the linear form p(F, e ) = g(i) + G(F, e ) where G(F, e) = E-32(e) Z {c,(F)cos me + s,(F)sin m6 } (13)

m=l

I
(14)

= C-3/2(e) {CT(e) ~(7) + sT(e)qr))

The bold symbols denote column vectors of N elements and the superscript T denotes a transpose. The !2N elements of c(r) and s(r) are to be determined. Substitution of eqn. (13) into eqns. (10) and (11) gives the two point boundary value problems d dr where g(a3 = 1 and g(l) = 0 (15)

(16)

(17)

13

where G(& 19)= 0 Substitution G(l, 0) = 0

of eqn. (14) into eqns. (17) and (18) gives

c +

STs) + H(8)(CTc + STs) + CTc + STs

.. ..

&(F +Los

e,i 1

(19)

and c(Z) = s(Z) = 0 c(1) = s(1) = 0 where i = ah/se

(20)

H(e)=---:

(k2/K2) - ; (i/6)

The nth element of the set (19) is

r=

a
ar

si2 r

3i

$1 cosnec,(P)+sinnes,(r))

- ( z P+aF+n2 {(F + LOS e

1X

(COS

ne

C, (P) + sin

ne

S,

(P)

= i$ 1

)i;}

(21)

and eqn. (20) gives c,(E) = s,(Z) = 0 c,(l) = s,(l) = 0

(22)

A weak form reduction of (19) is obtained by multiplying by C(f3) and integrating from 0 to 2n : (23) where
D mn =-

2n
H(e

J IT 0

)COS me cos ne de - n26 mn = D,,

E f?l=-

1 2n H(e )COS me sin ne de $ 7r 0

(24)

14

p,

2n =s/-

cosecosmeh
--x=12

de

Q,

=;

7 Coy;h de
0 is obtained by multiplying

A second set of N ordinary differential equations (19) by S(6 ) and integrating from 0 to 271:

(25) where 1 F mn =-2n

s = 0 hL = 0

H(B)sin me sin no de -rz26,,,,,

= F,,

u*=-

2n cos e sin me * -&de K3 I2

(26)

Equations

(23) and (25) can be compacted +CA =rP,

+r2Q,

into a set of 2N equations (27)

with boundary

conditions =0 (28)

A(a) =A@) where

D j E C= ________+_________ j F [ ET

(29)

The solution of the boundary value problem in eqns. (27) and (28) is obtained by superposition of a homogeneous solution and particular solutions: A = An + ;;A,, + F2AP2

(30)

15

The form An = r*, when substituted into the homogeneous eigenvalue problem Ca + A2a = 0 The 2N eigensolutions of (32) form 4N homogeneous determined coefficients solutions with unform of (27), gives the symmetric (32) (31)

AH =
or

I= rAka,
k=l

+ r-*kbk

(33)

An = A, R,(T;)cu where the ak and bk are eigenvectors a 2N X 4iV array of eigenvectors, R,(r) = diag[rl,
. . . , j;*2N,

(34) corresponding
F-*1, . . . , F-*2N]

to eigenvalue

AZ, A, is

and (y is a 4N X 1 vector of adjustable amplitude. The particular solutions in eqn. (30) are constants symmetric problems (I + C)A,l (41+ C)A,, The 4N boundary (Yin (34): [.z$!] = P, = Q* conditions (28) are then enforced

determined

from the

(35) through selection of the

y + [ ;!_I_;!]

{ $_}

=0

(36) The pressure (37)

Having determined then becomes

01in (36), the solution A in (30) is complete. -

p(F, 6) = lnF/ Ina + EW3/2(0){dr(e)ST(e)}A(r) The load-carrying capacity l?, the lubricant pressure gc, 7, are determined to be
w=
@,

flow rate a and the center of

_PaJb2

w _=

Jr
o
o

2n

dr,e)r

-- -

dedr

+G2

(36)

/J= @,

IJQ

jp
o

--z-M8 =

h(r, e) u(l,e,

2) de dZ

(39)

(40)

1
y,d_

2n

w;;

JJ

p(r, B)sin 0 r2 df? dr

--

(41)

In the test analyses N = 2 was sufficiently large to produce 5 within 0.1% of the converged value. 3. Bearing performance The bearing load w and lubricant flow G are computed for a range of bearing numbers A, film thickness variations E, bearing orientations 0 a and bearing offsets z. For flat bearings, i.e. e = 0, the load m = 0.515 is independent of bearing number A and offset 1 (see Figs. 2 and 3). When E > 0, w increases significantly with A, e and E, and is dependen? upon the orientation 0s. The sensitivity of the compute_d load W to the bearing orientation 0 ,, is shown in Fig. 4. The maximum W occurs for 8 e * n /4. The negative pressure region n/2 < 0 e < 1.46~ is analyzed inaccurately because of cavitation, but it correctly identifies a region of undesirable bearing orientation, Because of the sharpness of the maximum @, the range 0 < 0 e < n/4 is realistic for applications. The differences in W within this
2E

02 BEARING NUMBER ,4 FILM THICKNESS

04

06 VARIATION

06 F

Fig. 2. Bearing load w vs. bearing number h for z = 20. Fig. 3. Bearing load m vs. film thickness variation E for bearing number h = 4.

17

-12 -16

\ 4

i I

Fig. 4. Bearing load m us. bearing orientation

&, for h = 4, E = 0.6 and I=

20.

orientation range are significant as shown in Figs. 2 and 3. Increasing E and/or E increases m in every instance. At large E, which is typical of most s_awguide environments, the sensitivity of w to e is large. For 0 e = n/4, L = 30 and X = 4, a 100% increase in W occurs for a film thickness variation of approximately 2%. Though surface vibration is not included in this analysis, large @ fluctuations can occur through film thickness variations during plate vibration. Similarly if the rotating plate surface is not perfectly flat film thickness and W variations will occur. These problems are currently under study. The lubricant flow rate G for 8 c = 0 and 8 c = n /4 are presented in Figs. 5 and 6. The flow rate a is dependent upon A for all E. The pressure distribution for a typical bearing design of this type is shown in Fig. 7. The maximum pressure 5 = 20.41 occurs at 8 - Be = n/2, i.e. the angle of minimum film thickness. The center of pressure for 8c = 0 and h = 4 is presented in Fig. 8. An example of this bearing analysis applied to circular saw guides has the following specifications: bearing radius b = 2.5 X 10m2 m; mean film thickness h, = 5.5 X 10V6 m; rotation Q = 285 rad SK;viscosity ~1= 11.3 X low4 Pa s; bearing offset L = 0.5 m; pressure ps -pa = 2.0 X lo5 Pa; thickness variation E = 0.6; orientation B,, = 0. Then
x

6c(S2 b2
= (p, -p,)h; = 2o

L=20 From Fig. 2 the load is w = 5.2 which gives

W = w(p, -pe)b2 = 650 N

The corresponding

lubricant flow rate from Fig. 5 is

18

24

;:

16 c

2 I BEARING

3 NUMBER

4 A

01

0.2 0.4 FILM THICKNESS VARIATION

Fig. 5. Lubricant Fig. 6. Lubricant

flow 8 VS. bearing

number

A for ~5 = 20. variation E for bearing number x = 4.

flow 8 us. film thickness

FILM

0.6 0.2 0.4 THICKNESS VARIATION

0.8

Fig. 7. Bearing pressure Fig. 8. Center of pressure

distribution

for 1 = 20, A = 4, E = 0.6 and o0 = 0. variation for J? = 20, h = 4 and 8,, = 0.

us. film thickness

& = 6.3 and Q = Q@, -p,)h$k YC = 0.36 Yc = YCb = 9.0 X 10S3 m

= 1.9 X 1O+4 m3 s-l

The center of pressure in Fig. 8 is located at

19

and 2, = 0.08 X, =3C,b=2.0X 10m3 m

4. Conclusion Analysis of the pressure distribution and lubrication flow of a hydrostatic bearing with a sinusoidal surface leads to the following conclusions. (1) For a variable film thickness bearing under asymmetric operation the load capacity of the bearing and the lubricant flow increase as the bearing number h is increased. (2) The load capacity is independent of bearing number h for all offset values L if the film thickness is constant. (3) Increasing the bearing offset in a variable film thickness bearing increases the bearing load capacity and lubricant flow rate for fixed bearing number A. The increase is greater with larger variations in film thickness. (4) The orientation of the bearing defined by 8 a significantly affects the load capacity and the lubricant flow rate. The maximum load capacity and lubricant flow rate occur at 13 ,, = IT /4.

Acknowledgments The authors are grateful for the Fulbright Hays Research Scholarship received by Z. S. Safar under the International Exchange of Scholars Program. They are also grateful to the U.S. National Science Foundation and the University of California Forest Products Laboratory for their continued interest and sponsorship. Finally, they thank Mrs. Pat Boughtin for her assistance with the preparation of the manuscript.

Nomenclature
lubricant supply hole radius 2N element vector of radial functions bearing peripheral radius N-element vector of radial functions (see eqn. (14)) N-element vector of cosine functions (see eqn. (14)) lubricant film thickness h/ho, dimensionless film thickness lubricant film thickness at point 0 (see Fig. 1) bearing offset, distance between the bearing axis at point 0 and the moving surface axis of rotation at point C L/b, dimensionless bearing offset lubricant pressure ambient pressure

20 ps ij z r, e r, z S(F) s(8) LJ(r, 0) V(r, 0) u, u, w W v - _ xc, yc f ha A,

P

Ak

P sz

lubricant supply pressure @ -pa)/@, - p,), dimensionless pressure lubricant flow rate Q/J/(P, - pa)hi, dimensionless flow rate polar coordinates referenced to the bearing center 0 and the line a r/b, z/h,-,, dimensionless coordinates N-element vector of radial functions (see eqn. (14)) N-element vector of sine functions (see eqn. (14)) surface radial velocity surface circumferential velocity fluid radial, circumferential and axial velocity bearing load W/@, - pa)b2, bearing load criterion x,/b, y,/b, dimensionless center of pressure dimensionless film thickness variation amplitude orientation of the bearing (see Fig. 1) 6pfib2/(p, -p,)h$, bearing number exponent, kth eigenvalue lubricant viscosity fluid density surface angular velocity

References
1 G. R. Fox and H. J. Sneck, Orifice flows in externally pressurized bearings, P~oc. 1st Conf. on Gas-Lubricated Bearings, Rep. ACR-49, Office of Naval Research, Dept. of the Navy, 1959, pp. 482 - 496. 2 D. Dowson, Inertia effects in hydrostatic thrust bearings, J. Basic Eng., 83 (June 1961) 227 - 234. 3 H. C. Rippel, Review of hydrostatic lubrication, Franklin Inst. Seminar on Computer Aided Design of Hydrostatic Bearing Systems, Tech. Rep. F-C2105, Franklin Inst. Philadelphia, Dec. 1968. 4 J. P. ODonoghue and W. B. Rowe, Hydrostatic bearing design, Tribal. Znt., 2 (1969) 25 - 68. 5 J. P. ODonoghue and W. B. Rowe, Hydrostatic bearing design, supplement for unequal opposed pads, Tribol. Int., 2 (1969) 225 - 228. 6 G. K. Lewis and J. P. ODonoghue, Tapered land hydrostatic oil bearings, Tribal. Int., 1 (1968) 43 - 47.