Control on wear of journal bearing operating in mixed lubrication regime using grooving arrangements

Purpose - The journal bearings subjected to heavy load and slow speed operate in mixed lubrication regime causing contact between the interacting surfaces and resulting in wear. Complexity of wear behavior and lack of unifying theory/model make wear-control very challenging. Design/methodology/approach - In the present research work, theoretical and experimental investigations have been conducted to explore the effect of grooving arrangements on the wear behavior of journal bearing operating in mixed lubrication regime. The theoretical model of Hirani (2005) that uses mass conserving cavitation algorithm has been used to determine the bearing eccentricity for different groove arrangements (with varying groove location and extent) for identifying a groove arrangement that minimizes the wear. The wear tests on the grooved bearings were conducted after suitable running-in of the new bearings on a fully automated journal bearing test set-up. A load and speed combination required to operate the bearing in mixed lubrication was used. The performance of different arrangement of bearing was evaluated by measuring their weight loss after the test. Findings - Wear was significantly reduced with the use of proper groove arrangement for a bearing operating in mixed lubrication regime. Originality/value - The improvement in bearing performance by providing grooves has been the subject matter of several studies in the past, but these studies were confined to the hydrodynamic operative regime of the bearing. In the present work, seven different combinations of axial and radial groove arrangement were tried, which has not been reported in any other work.