Micropolar lubricant effects on the performance of noncircular lobed bearings

The noncircular bearing configurations considered for the present study are two, three and four-lobe bearings lubricated with micropolar fluids. The modified Reynolds equation is obtained based on the theory of micropolar fluids and solving it by using finite element method, the steady state film pressures are obtained. Then the effects of the size of material characteristic length and the coupling number on the static performance are investigated. The results show that micropolar lubricants can produce significant enhancement in the static performance characteristics. The effects are more pronounced at larger coupling numbers. The trend of effects depends on the bearing configurations. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.