Calculation of Stribeck curves for (water) lubricated journal bearings

This paper describes a mixed elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) model for finite length elastic journal bearings. The finite element method was employed to discretise the coupled system of 2D–3D Reynolds-structure equations and to compute Stribeck curves at constant load. As underrelaxation strategies have been found to be insufficient for an iterative solution of this problem, artificial dynamics have been added to the numerical structure equations in order to solve for stationary solutions of the fluid–structure problem. An ideal plastic asperity contact model together with an effective film thickness formulation according to Chengwei and Linqing was employed in order to compute the contact pressure in mixed lubrication. The method presented in this paper is applied to a typical water lubricated journal bearing problem. Computed Stribeck curves are presented and the numerical performance of the method is evaluated.