Unified coordinate system model for performance calculation of fix-pad journal bearing with different pad preload

Traditional model for calculating performance parameters of a fix-pad journal bearing leads to heavy workload, complicated and changeable formulae as it requires deriving various geometric formulae with different bearing types such as circular journal bearing, dislocated bearing and elliptic bearing. Considering different pad preload ratios for non-standard bearing, traditional model not only becomes more complicated but also reduces scalability and promotion of the calculation programs. For the complexly case of traditional model while dealing with various fix-pad journal bearings, unified coordinate system model for performance calculation of fix-pad journal bearing is presented in the paper. A unified coordinate system with the bearing center at the origin is established, and the eccentricity ratio and attitude angle of axis relative to each pad are calculated through the coordinates of journal center and each pad center. Geometric description of fix-pad journal bearing is unified in this model, which can be used for both various standard bearing and non-standard bearing with different pad preload ratios. Validity of this model is verified with an elliptical bearing. Performance of a non-standard four-leaf bearing with different pad preload ratios is calculated based on this model. The calculation result shows that increasing preload ratio of the pad 1 and keeping that of the left three pads constant improves bearing capacity, stiffness and damping coefficients. This research presents a unified coordinate system model unifies performance calculation of fix-pad journal bearings and studied a non-standard four-leaf bearing with different pad preload ratios, the research conclusions provides new methods for performance calculation of fix-pad journal bearings.