STABILITY ANALYSIS OF FLEXIBLY SUPPORTED ROUGH SUBMERGED OIL JOURNAL BEARINGS

A theoretical analysis is presented to study the effect of support sti ffness and damping on the transient response of flexibly supported rot or-bearing systems, considering surface roughness. The transient respo nse of rotor is plotted in the form of trajectories. The average Reyno lds equation, which uses the Patir and Cheng flow simulation model of rough surfaces, is solved by the finite difference method with a succe ssive over-relaxation scheme (Gauss-Seidel), while the equations of mo tion of both the rotor and bearing are solved by the fourth-order Rung e-Kutta method. It has been found that the surface roughness considera bly affects the stability of a rotor-bearing system and the stability may be improved greatly by a proper design of bearing supports.