An Updated Computational Tilting Pad Journal Bearing (TPJB) Model to include Pad Flexibility

MAJOR APPLICATION: Widely applied in commercial turbomachinery: compressors, land based gas turbines, etc.

Sponsor: Turbomachinery Research Consortium (TRC)

OBJECTIVE: Build an enhanced computational program to model TPJBs considering pad flexibility

Significance: TPJBs are a source of both static support and dynamic stiffness and damping. TPJBs typically have four or five pads. Figure 1 depicts a five pad TPJB. Each pad is free to rotate about a pivot and cannot support a moment. As a result, the destabilizing forces are greatly reduced or eliminated, and the bearings are no longer a potential source of rotor dynamic instability.

Accurate prediction of the static and dynamic forced performance of TPJBs is necessary to design, troubleshoot and predict the dynamic response and stability of rotor-bearing systems.

Figure 1 TPJB with five pads.

Tao, Y. (May, 2012), A Novel Computational Model for Tilting Pad Journal Bearings with Soft Pivot Stiffnesses