To Investigate the Effect of Oil Film Thickness at the Entrance of the Infinitely Long Slider Bearing Using CFD Analysis

The oil film thickness between slider and shoe is a significant parameter and has a strong influence on the bearings performance. A CFD analysis has been carried out to find the effect of oil film thickness at the entrance of the slider using ANSYS workbench. Laminar viscous model with SIMPLE pressure-velocity coupling are used for the analysis. 2-D steady state, Navier-Stoke equations are discretized with finite volume approximations using structured grids. First the analysis has been carried out for the maximum load carrying capacity (i.e. m = 1.1889). For validation, CFD values are compared with the available analytical solution of Reynolds equation. CFD results showed good concord with the analytical values with a maximum error of 1%. After validation, the analysis has extended to four more 1m1 values such as 0.5, 1, 1.5 and 2. If bearing operate at below maximum load carrying capacity, the result shows that low load carrying capacity and high frictional losses. But for above, frictional forces reduces and blunt of the pressure profile at peak also decreases which will influence the action of extremely high load on a very small area of the shoe.