Film pressure distribution in water-lubricated rubber journal bearings

Measurements of fluid film pressures were made on water-lubricated rubber journal bearings. The measurements indicated that the film pressure profiles are very different from those of conventional rigid bearings. The relatively low film pressures caused significant rubber deflections but were too low to produce lubricant viscosity changes. Integration of the pressure in the bearings showed that they operate in the regime of mixed lubrication. The behaviour of the bearings was theoretically investigated using computational fluid dynamics. There was reasonable agreement between computational fluid dynamics and experimental results.