Spiral Groove Thrust Bearing Modeling with Finite Difference Method

The paper aims to simulate the static load capacity of a gas spiral groove thrust bearing for a high-speed compressor. The pressure distribution inside the bearing air film is computed by discretizing and solving the Reynolds equation through a finite difference numerical scheme. The mesh convergency analysis is performed to investigate the accuracy of the solution when the number of nodes is increased inside the computational domain. The effect of the number of grooves on the load carrying capacity is also investigated while maintaining the other geometrical parameters of the bearing. The results are compared with an analytical model available in the literature.