A fully coupled 3D thermo-elastohydrodynamics model for a bump-type compliant foil journal bearing

Coupled thermo-elastohydrodynamics model has been developed to predict three-dimensional thermal, structural and hydrodynamic performance of foil bearings. Bearing deformation and film pressure has been coupled in FEM considering thermal/centrifugal growths, and thermo-mechanical material properties. Energy equation has been solved for film temperature using FDM, which is also coupled to FEM via successive iterations. Augmented-Lagrangian method and thermal contact models have been applied to solve for mechanical and thermal contacts. The predicted values have been benchmarked against published measurements, which indicated reasonable correlation. A parametric study has been conducted for various shaft speeds and load conditions to visualize bearing performance.