EMPIRICAL PREDICTION OF THE SHEAR-LAYER THICKNESS IN LUBRICATING FILMS

A computational procedure has been presented by Wang and Seireg (1993) for the thermohydrodynamic analysis of fluid film bearings with the a ssumption of a central heat generation (shear) zone and the considerat ion of the thermal expansion across the film. This paper presents a di mensionless relationship for predicting the thickness of the shear lay er in lubricating films, which is developed based on the extensive exp erimental data for the journal bearing reported by Ezzat (1971) and Se ireg and Ezzat (1973). The relationship which was found to be a functi on of Sommerfeld and Peclet numbers is then applied to evaluate the pr essure distribution for other cases of journal and slider bearings. Th e results show excellent correlation with the experimental results in all the investigated conditions.