Journal and Wave Bearing Impedance Calculation Software

The wave bearing software suite is a MALTA application that computes bearing properties for user-specified wave bearing conditions, as well as plain journal bearings. Wave bearings are fluid film journal bearings with multi-lobed wave patterns around the circumference of the bearing surface. In this software suite, the dynamic coefficients are outputted in a way for easy implementation in a finite element model used in rotor dynamics analysis. The software has a graphical user interface (GUI) for inputting bearing geometry parameters, and uses MATLAB s structure interface for ease of interpreting data. This innovation was developed to provide the stiffness and damping components of wave bearing impedances. The computational method for computing bearing coefficients was originally designed for plain journal bearings and tilting pad bearings. Modifications to include a wave bearing profile consisted of changing the film thickness profile given by an equation, and writing an algorithm to locate the integration limits for each fluid region. Careful consideration was needed to implement the correct integration limits while computing the dynamic coefficients, depending on the form of the input/output variables specified in the algorithm.