Performance of hydrostatic tilted thrust pad bearings of various recess shapes operating with non-Newtonian lubricant

•Finite element formulation of non-Newtonian lubricant by using Galerkin׳s technique in thrust bearing.•An iterative non-linear FEM scheme is used to solve the Reynolds equation for thrust bearing.•Effect of tilt on the hydrostatic thrust pad bearing.•Performance characteristics of hydrostatic thrust bearing.

Hydrostatic thrust bearings are an integral part of hydroelectric power stations. These bearings are usually designed to work under parallel operation, but tilt is inevitable due to manufacturing errors, assembly errors, structural vibrations and structural deformations. Owing to the advent of latest advancements in manufacturing techniques, any geometric shape of recess can be easily manufactured and the designer has a greater flexibility. The geometric shape of recess significantly affects the performance of a bearing. Therefore, the present study is aimed to numerically analyze the influence of the tilt and recess shape on the static and dynamic performance characteristics of the hydrostatic thrust pad bearing system having Rabinowitsch fluid model lubricant. The lubricant obeying Rabinowitsch fluid model with tilt makes the Reynolds equation highly non-linear therefore, finite element method is used to analyze. Three different types of recess shapes of equal area A¯b/A¯oc=4 have been analyzed to model hydrostatic thrust pad compensated by orifice compensator. The numerically simulated results indicate that the tilt angle significantly affects the dynamic and static characteristic parameters. The value of pocket pressure and fluid film reaction of a hydrostatic thrust pad bearing has been found to significantly decrease with tilt whereas the value of lubricant flow, fluid film stiffness coefficient and fluid damping coefficient increase with tilt.