Modeling of hydrodynamic bearing wear in rotor-bearing systems

Hydrodynamic bearings are widely used in industry mainly due to their simplicity, efficiency and low cost. However, these components also represent one of the main critical factors with respect to stability and failure analysis of the system. During the operation of rotating machines, these bearings are subjected to a progressive wear process, which can be accentuated in starts and stops or during the passage through the critical speed of the rotor. To prevent catastrophic failure of the rotating system, it is necessary to precisely detect wear, and purpose, it is necessary to accurately model the wear in this kind of bearing. Within this context, the main objective of this paper is to present a numerical model that characterizes both the hydrodynamic bearing as well as the wear present in its wall, and then, to analyze the influence of the wear on the dynamic response of the rotor-bearing-system in frequency domain, taking into account the rising of the backward component due to the increase of the bearing anisotropy. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.