Steadily loaded journal bearings: Quasi-3D mass–energy-conserving analysis

A finite-element approach to thermoelastohydrodynamic lubrication analysis is developed by extending a previous mass- and energy-conserving algorithm to include wall-convection boundary conditions, groove-mixing theory, and thermo-mechanical deformations. To this end, the cross-film-averaged energy equation is coupled with the heat conduction equations relevant to the bearing sleeve and the journal by fitting the temperature profile across the film thickness with a fourth-order polynomial. A finite-element condensation technique is used to reduce the unknowns in heat conduction equations in the bush and in the journal to the temperatures of the sleeve surface and journal axis, respectively. Applied to the analysis of steadily loaded journal bearings, the proposed method shows good agreement with published experimental results and incurs low computational cost.