Surface roughness effects in hydrodynamic bearings

An analytical solution method for the effects of general surface roughness in hydrodynamic bearings is presented and illustrated with the analysis of wide exponential land slider bearings. The method is based on the solution of Reynolds equation using perturbation techniques under the assumption of small amplitude waviness coupled with linear superposition using Fourier transforms. To verify the analytical solution, full numerical results were obtained using finite differences discretization techniques and multigrid methods for convergence acceleration. Comparisons were made for cases involving surface features given either as a sinusoidal wave or as a single Gaussian dent. A good agreement was found, therefore verifying the accuracy of the analytical scheme. The applicability, limitations and possible extensions to the methodology are also discussed.