ANALYSIS OF THE STEADY-STATE PERFORMANCE OF A WEDGE-SHAPED HYDRODYNAMIC JOURNAL BEARING

A wedge-shaped hydrodynamic journal bearing is proposed here. The anal ysis considered the how in the bearing to be laminar incompressible an d the lubricant to be isoviscous. An oblique system of coordinates is used to formulate the Reynolds like equation governing the pressure in side the bearing. An exact solution for the pressure is presented and a perturbed solution valid for small values of the bearing wedge angle is also given. The results show that the wedge-shaped bearing of smal l wedge angle is superior to cylindrical bearing having the same side length. It is also found that a wedge-shaped bearing configuration is best recommended for long bearings rather than for short bearings.