Journal bearings design for a novel revolving vane compressor

This paper presents the theoretical details of the journal bearing design for Revolving Vane (RV) rotary type compressor. The mathematical models, force analysis, and the theoretical design analysis for the dynamically loaded journal bearing of the compressor are presented. The variations of the minimum oil film thickness and the maximum film pressure developed are shown and the influences of design parameters, compressor configurations, and operating conditions on the journal bearing performance are described. For an air-conditioning compressor of 1.5 kW cooling capacity, the lowest minimum oil film thickness for lower and upper journal bearings is 6.6 μm and 4.3 μm respectively, when the cylinder is simply supported and the rotor is cantilever-supported. The lowest minimum oil film thickness for the journal bearing, which supports the cylinder, reduces to 4.0 μm if the cantilever-type support is used. Besides that, a short-fat configuration of RV compressor is favorable in the interest of lowering bearing forces.