Many mechanisms, such as computer hard drives, gear trains, and machine tool spindle systems, operate under both axial and radial loads, which should be respectively supported by a thrust and a journal bearing. By utilizing the end face of the shaft of a journal bearing as a thrust bearing, a coupled journal-thrust bearing system can be formed. This paper presents a mixed lubrication model developed to investigate the lubrication of this coupled bearing system. A conformal-mapping method is used in the model formulation to facilitate a universal flow description. The performance of typical coupled bearing systems is numerically investigated.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.