THE EFFECTS OF 3-DIMENSIONAL PAD DEFORMATIONS ON TILTING-PAD JOURNAL BEARINGS UNDER DYNAMIC LOADING

Pad distortions are generally not taken into account for the dynamic s tudy of tilting-pad journal bearings. The objective of this paper is b oth to show the influence of the three-dimensional (3-D) pad deformati ons due to the pressure field on the bearing response and to analyse t he bearing behavior for various unbalance eccentricities. Similar orbi ts are obtained using 2-D or 3-D pad deformations; however, due to the axial profile of the film thickness, the minimum film thickness obtai ned with the 3-D model is about 40 percent lower than the one obtained with the 2-D model for the greatest unbalance eccentricity. The maxim um pressure is decreased by about 16 percent when the 3-D model is use d but that value is nearly similar to the one obtained without deforma tion. The dynamic behavior of the bearing is largely modified when the dynamic load is greater than the static load.