CFD investigation of pressure depressions in aerostatic circular thrust bearings

Under certain operating conditions, the pressure distributions of aerostatic thrust bearings experience an undesirable pressure depression which decreases their load carrying capacity. Many investigators reasoned this phenomenon to the occurrence of shock waves in the bearing clearance. Recently, some investigators reasoned this phenomenon to the transition from laminar to turbulent flow and claimed that no shock wave is generated at the boundary between supersonic and subsonic flows. As such, there is a contradiction between these two opinions. In this paper, the rationale of the pressure depression phenomenon in aerostatic thrust bearings is investigated using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. The turbulent full Navier-Stokes equations for steady, three-dimensional, compressible flows are numerically solved in this study. Two circular bearing configurations are analyzed. The obtained results showed that the predicted pressure distributions along the fluid film compare well with the corresponding experimental data of other investigators. The present computational methodology allowed a clear capturing of the coherent structures of the flowfield in the bearing inlet region which include the coalescing of compression waves into shock waves and the region of shock/boundary layer interaction (pseudo-shock). The thorough understanding of this phenomenon is the first step towards the development of its appropriate control methods.