The Method of Christopherson for Solving Free Boundary Problems for Infinite Journal Bearings by Means of Finite Differences

摘要

A method for solving free boundary problems for journal bearings by means of finite differences has been proposed by Christopherson. The paper analyses Christopherson's method in detail for the case of an infinite journal bearing. First it is shown that the discrete approximation is accurate to O((delta t) squared) where delta t is the stepsize. Next it is shown that the discrete problem is equivalent to a quadratic programming problem. Then the iterative method for computing the discrete approximation is analysed. Finally, some numerical results are given.