Suitability of grooved configurations for bearings and seals

Abstract

Suitably designed grooves and wedges on the surface of a plain hydrodynamic sleeve can modify the load-carrying capacity, the side leakage and other characteristics. If the sleeve is to be used as a hydrodynamic seal for turbogenerators to prevent leakage of cooling gas or for other engineering applications, it must have an unbroken oil film of extent 2Π. A plain sleeve with a very small eccentricity may provide an uninterrupted film but it will have a load capacity insufficient to support even its own weight and it will also be unstable. The effects of various groove and wedge configurations on the performance characteristics of a hydrodynamic sleeve were studied. The suitability of these configurations or combinations of them for bearings or seals was investigated.