2017 Volume 62 Issue 2 Pages 111-121
The purpose of the paper is to present findings on creating new pump-in and pump-out type of gas-lubricated grooved spool bearings. A gas-lubricated grooved spool bearing can generate a gas film bearing pressure with shaft rotation in either direction, and also support both an axial load and a radial load at the same time. So far, several studies on the gas-lubricated grooved spool bearings have been reported. However, such conventional studies investigated only one rotational direction. In previous researches the authors proposed a new idea for journal, thrust circular-disk, conical and spherical type bearings rotating both regular and reverse sides. As a result of such previous studies, proposed idea shows satisfactory properties as a bearing. In this paper, an optimal regular and reverse rotation-type gas-lubricated spool grooved bearing is developed referring to bearing parameters. Our approach utilized the narrow groove theory. Suitable combinations of parameters of thrust/journal bearing for spool bearing were shown by numerical analysis of bearing characteristics (the load carrying capacity, the stiffness, and the damping coefficient, etc). It is clarified that the present bearing is not inferior to the conventional bearing.
