Comparison of Different Algorithms for CFD Analysis of Two Dimensional Journal Bearing Model

Abstract

Journal bearings have wider range of applications in industries owing to their theoretically infinite life span and high load carrying capacity at high speeds. Pressure generation phenomenon in case of hydrodynamic journal bearing is an attraction for researchers. With help of advanced computational facilities and dedicated software tools hydrodynamic action of journal bearing can be predicted more accurately. Deciding the suitability of a particular solution scheme for a given problem is one of the critical tasks, which can save computational time. Present work aims for investigation of two dimensional hydrodynamic analysis of a journal bearing, in order to get the most suitable computational scheme to get the fastest convergence rate for this type of model. A laminar model under steady state conditions has been taken under consideration for present analysis. Numerical investigation is carried out by using software tool ANSYS Fluent. Two dimensional model of lubricating fluid film region for a fixed value of eccentricity is generated and meshed. The pressure profiles for the hydrodynamic journal bearing are computed for a fixed value of viscosity and speed by using various schemes available in the software. Comparison of results for each scheme is made and the most effective scheme is selected by considering the minimum number of iterations & time taken to converge the solution. SIMPLE algorithm is found to be fastest and most suited for such cases with SIMPLEC and PISO also working well.