Numerical investigation of the effect of manufacturing errors in pads on the behaviour of tilting-pad journal bearings

In this study, the effect of the manufacturing tolerances of the pad thickness or the assembly errors on the characteristics of a five-pad tilting-pad journal bearing is analysed. In fact, the pad thickness errors correspond to a different preload factor or clearance for each pad. A sensitivity analysis was performed for several combinations of pad thickness for both load-on-pad and load-between-pad configurations using a thermo-elasto-hydro-dynamic model. Three cases of thickness variations were studied. The numerical results show that these manufacturing or assembly errors considerably affect on both the static and dynamic behaviours of the bearing.