Numerical investigation of journal misalignment on the static and dynamic characteristics of aerostatic journal bearings

The present study analyzed the influences of journal misalignment on the static and dynamic performance of aerostatic journal bearings. An effective numerical approach was proposed to solve the unsteady Reynolds equation. Based on this, the bearing’s static and dynamic characteristics under different misalignment angles were obtained. The simulation results showed that the bearing’s static performance could be affected evidently by misalignment of the journal. The correlations of the bearing’s static characteristics such as the static stiffness, friction coefficient, mass inflow rate and angular stiffness with the journal misalignment angles were studied. The variation tendencies of the bearing’s dynamic characteristics with the journal misalignment angles were gained. That the larger the journal misalignment angle, the larger the absolute values of bearing’s dynamic stiffness coefficients. However, the influence of journal misalignment on bearing’s dynamic damping coefficients was insignificant.