LAUSR

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe a simulation and experimental research concerning the effect of recess depth on the lubrication performance of a hydrostatic thrust bearing by constant rate flow. Design/methodology/approach The Computational Fluid Dynamics and Finite Volume Method have been used to compute the lubrication characteristics of an annular recess hydrostatic thrust bearing with different recess depth. The performances are oil recess pressure, oil recess temperature and oil film velocity. The recess depth has been optimized. A test rig is established for testing the pressure field of the structure of hydrostatic thrust bearing after recess depth optimization, and experimental results show that experimental data are basically identical with the simulation results, while demonstrates the validity of the proposed numerical simulation method. Findings The results demonstrate that the oil film temperature decreases and the oil film pressure first increases, and then decreases with th...