Electro-rheological fluid lubricated textured multi-lobe hole-entry hybrid journal bearing system

Lubrication of fluid film bearings with smart lubricants provides better dynamic behavior. The behavior of these smart lubricants is described by Bingham model of non-Newtonian fluid flow. In the recent years, surface texturing has open up enormous possibilities for enhancing the performance of tribo-components and is being successfully applied in fluid film bearing applications. This article deals with the theoretical investigation pertaining to the influence of electro-rheological fluid lubrication with textured bearing on the performance of multi-lobe (three-lobe) hole-entry hybrid journal bearing. For numerical analysis, the continuous Bingham model has been used to derive the modified Reynold’s equation and solved using the finite element method numerical technique in order to get the static and dynamic characteristics of the electro-rheological lubricated textured three-lobe hybrid journal bearing. The results obtained from the present numerical model are compared with the published results of previous investigations. In this work, the effects of electric field and Sommerfeld number on the performance of multi-lobe (three-lobe) textured/non-textured journal bearings have been comprehensively studied. It has been observed that electro-rheological fluid lubrication in the three-lobe textured journal bearing significantly improves the performance characteristics vis-à-vis non-textured circular journal bearing lubricated with Newtonian lubricant.