Numerical Modeling of a Rayleigh Step and Multi Step Slider Bearings using Finite Difference Method

Abstract

The oil film pressure in a step slider bearing is difficult to obtain because the discontinuous clearance leads to a discontinuous velocity profile. In this paper, the pressure distribution in a step slider bearing is obtained numerically by introducing a virtual clearance to satisfy the continuity of the velocity at the step. The governing equation is discretized using central difference method for each internal node in the flow volume and the resulting system of equations solved using Gauss Seidel scheme with a convergence criterion of 0.0001. The result obtained with the present method is in good agreement with analytical solution for the Rayleigh step slider. The method is also applied to a multi step slider bearing for which no analytical solution exists. The solution converges when the mesh is refined.