A New Method to Calculate Water Film Stiffness and Damping for Water Lubricated Bearing with Multiple Axial Grooves

Water lubricated guide bearings for hydro turbines and pumps are conventionally designed with multiple axial grooves to provide effectively cooling and flushing away abrasives. Due to the variety of groove configuration in terms of number and size, a predication of their performance is difficult. This paper deals with an analytical procedure to investigate groove effect on load capacity, stiffness and damping for this type of bearing where it is considered as an assembly of many inclined slide bearings. The result can be applied to bearings made of hard materials combined with low bearing pressure.