Effect of manufacturing errors on static characteristics of externally pressurized gas journal-thrust bearings

The effect of manufacturing errors on the static characteristics of the externally pressurized gas journal K-thrust bearings is studied by the finite element method. The consistent transform principle is proposed to program the computation for journal and thrust bearing. The second-order partial differential equation, i.e., the Reynolds equation, is reduced to one-order with the weighted residual method in the discretization procedure, which releases the requirement of continuity degree of the interpolation function while the finite element method is adopted. The analyses of this paper center on the influence of the parallelism and roundness of the shaft surface, head face verticality on the load capacities. The mutual influences between journal and thrust bearing are stressed. The shaft taper error produces an impact on the axial load capacities, while the head face verticality error exerts an influence on the radial load capacities.