This study aims to suppress oil film nonuniformity and instability in a double-rectangular-cavity hydrostatic thrust bearing under high-speed and heavy-load conditions by regulating the thermal deformation of the friction pair.
A thermal-fluid-solid coupling model was established for a Q1-205 hydrostatic thrust bearing to analyze the temperature field, deformation field and oil film morphology of the original bearing. Grid independence was assessed for the oil-film domain, and full-scale experiments on the original bearing were used to assess the model predictions of oil film temperature and thickness under the tested operating conditions. The assessed model was subsequently applied to screen stepped material-distribution schemes for the oil pad and mirror plate. A two-dimensional quadratic response surface model was established with the oil film thickness range as the screening objective.
Among the candidate schemes, T5-G6, comprising the T5 oil-pad material-distribution scheme and the G6 mirror-plate material-distribution scheme, was identified as the preferred material-distribution combination. Based on the coupling model evaluated against full-scale experiments on the original bearing, the T5-G6 scheme was predicted to reduce the standard deviation of oil film thickness by approximately 36–55% and increase the minimum oil film thickness compared with the original bearing. At 250 r/min, the predicted minimum oil film thickness of the T5-G6 bearing remained above 0.04 mm, whereas that of the original bearing fell below this threshold. For the original bearing under the tested conditions, the maximum error between the simulated and experimental oil film temperatures was 8.7%, and the oil film thickness errors remained within 5–8%.
A predictive material-distribution design method is proposed to regulate the thermal deformation of the friction pair. The numerical results indicate that the spatial arrangement of friction-pair materials has the potential to improve oil film uniformity and operating stability under high-speed conditions. The proposed method provides a preliminary engineering design route for the subsequent fabrication and prototype-level validation of multi-material hydrostatic thrust bearings.
The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-05-2026-0224
