Experimental Study on the Stabilization of Small-Bore Journal Bearings by Controlling Starved Lubrication and Bearing Orientation Angle

Journal bearings are widely used for supporting high-speed rotating machinery, such as turbine, compressor, and HDD spindle, because of their high load carrying capacity, stability, and durability. Recently, the engineering trend is oriented to higher speed and smaller sizes of rotating machinery, and then it is important to enhance stabilities for the small-bore journal bearings. Tilting pad journal bearing is generally used for high-speed rotating machineries because of their advantages of stabilization. However, there are some problems using compact size rotating machineries for their high manufacturing cost and complicated structure. Therefore, it is necessary to enhance the stability of more simple bearings compared with tilting pad bearing in order to use for small-size rotating machinery. This paper describes the stabilization method of the small-bore journal bearing based on the combination mechanism with starved lubrication and orientation angle change. It is found that the stabilization of small-bore journal bearings is improved drastically by hybrid lubrication combining these two kinds of mechanism.