Static characteristics of a water-lubricated hydrostatic thrust bearing using a membrane restrictor

• A very high static stiffness could be achieved by the proposed membrane restrictor.
• The orifice effect affected the characteristics of the water-lubricated bearings.
• The numerical results showed good agreement with the experimental results.

It is well known that water does not pollute the environment as much as oil, but it has lower viscosity. We investigate the static characteristics of a water-lubricated hydrostatic thrust bearing using a membrane restrictor to achieve higher stiffness and lower power consumption at high speeds. The static characteristics of the proposed hydrostatic thrust bearing were studied numerically and experimentally for a nonrotating shaft. In the numerical calculations, the orifice effect was taken into account at the inlet of the viscous resistance area of the membrane restrictor. We found that the proposed water-lubricated hydrostatic thrust bearing could achieve a very high static stiffness by using the membrane restrictor, and the numerical and experimental results showed good agreement.