Recently, herringbone-grooved journal bearings have had important applications in miniature rotating machines. The scribed grooves, on either the rotating or stationary member of the bearing, can pump the lubricant inward, which generates supporting stiffness and improves the dynamic stability, especially for concentric operation. Most of the previous investigations that dealt with herringbone grooved journal bearings and grooved thrust bearings were theoretical. Few experimental attempts for the investigation of the performance characteristics of herringbone grooved journal bearings (HGJBs) and grooved thrust bearings have been done. All these investigations concentrated on rectangular and circular groove profiles of HGJBs. In order to improve the performance characteristics of HGJBs, a new design of the groove profile, the beveled-step groove profile, is introduced. The introduced groove profile is capable of increasing the pressure recovery at the divergence of the flow over the step. In addition, it increases the amount of oil pumped inward over the circular groove profile. Optimization processes were carried out experimentally, in order to obtain the optimal geometry of the introduced groove profile. The optimum geometrical parameters of the groove (groove angle α, groove width ratio β, and groove depth ratio Γ) are 29 deg, 0.5, and 2.0, respectively, which give maximum radial force and maximum radial stiffness of the beveled-step HGJB. In order to check the effectiveness of the introduced beveled-step groove profile, the obtained results were compared with that for rectangular groove profile. The comparison shows that the introduced beveled-step HGJBs have higher radial force, higher load carrying capacity, and lower friction torque than the rectangular HGJBs.
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