Boundary slip surface design for high speed water lubricated journal bearings

This paper presents the development of a numerical model for high speed and water lubricated journal bearings with different boundary slip arrangements. The effect of boundary slip and its possible mechanism are analyzed and discussed. The results suggest that a suitable combination of slip/no-slip surfaces on the sleeve of a journal bearing enables improvement of the tribological performance through (i) suppressing the occurrence of cavitation, (ii) enhancing the load bearing capacity, and (iii) reducing the interfacial friction between bearing sleeve and shaft. Such improvement becomes more significant for the bearings with smaller eccentricity ratio, smaller width and larger diameter. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.