The effect of active control on stability characteristics of hydrodynamic journal bearings with an axial groove

Abstract Results of theoretical investigations on stability characteristics of an actively controlled hydrodynamic journal bearing are presented. Proportional, derivative and integral controls are adopted for a hydrodynamic journal bearing with an axial groove. Furthermore, a cavitation algorithm, implementing the Jakobsson-Floberg-Olsson boundary condition, is adopted to predict cavitation regions in a fluid film more accurately than the conventional analysis, which uses the Reynolds condition. Using the bearing's linear dynamic coefficients, which are evaluated from the perturbation method, the stability characteristics of a rotor-bearing system are investigated using the Routh-Hurwitz criteria. It is shown that the instability threshold speed of a rotor-bearing system can be greatly increased and the unbalanced responses of the system can be markedly decreased by both proportional and derivative control of the bearing. Results show that active control of a hydrodynamic journal bearing can be adopted for stability improvement and reduction of the unbalanced whirl amplitude of a rotor-bearing system.