Theoretical considerations of static and dynamic characteristics of air foil thrust bearing with tilt and slip flow

The thrust pad of the rotor is used to sustain the axial force generated due to the pressure difference between the compressor and turbine sides of turbomachinery such as gas turbines, compressors, and turbochargers. Furthermore, this thrust pad has a role to maintain and determines the attitude of the rotor. In a real system, it also helps reinforce the stiffness and damping of the journal bearing. This study was performed for the purpose of analyzing the characteristics of the air foil thrust bearing. The model for the air foil thrust bearing used in this study is composed of two parts: one is an inclined plane, which plays a role in increasing the load carrying capacity using the physical wedge effect, and the other is a flat plane. This study mainly consists of three parts. First, the static characteristics were obtained over the region of the thin air film using the finite-difference method (FDM) and the bump foil characteristics using the finite-element method (FEM). Second, the analysis of the dynamic characteristics was conducted by perturbation method. For more exact calculation, the rarefaction gas coefficients perturbed about the pressure and film thickness were taken into consideration. At last, the static and dynamic characteristics of the tilting condition of the thrust pad were obtained. Furthermore, the load carrying capacity and torque were calculated for both tilting and nontilting conditions. From this study, several results were presented: (1) the stiffness and damping of the bump foil under the condition of the various bump parameters, (2) the load carrying capacity and bearing torque at the tilting state, (3) the bearing performance for various bearing parameters, and (4) the effects considering the rarefaction gas coefficients.