Thrust bearings are widely used in many rotary industrial applications. In this work, a thrust bearing surface under the mixed lubrication regime is analysed and then optimised with aim for use in an injection moulded polymer bearing. A model which couples the mechanical deformation, boundary lubrication and solid contact is developed to investigate the behaviour of the thrust bearing under the load balance condition. This model provides the predictions of important quantities such as load carrying capacity from fluid and solid contact, minimum film thickness and contact pressure. More important, the large-scale surface geometry is optimised using a quadratic geometry and this large-scale surface is superimposed with the small-scale roughness from measured surface to form an optimised surface. This large-scale geometry might be controlled in the injection moulding process of polymer thrust bearings, whereas it is more difficult to control the roughness. The fluid load carrying capacity for the optimised surface has more than doubled compared to the fluid load carrying capacity for the measured surface.

中文翻译：

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基于表面优化方法的平地推力轴承混合润滑分析

推力轴承广泛用于许多旋转工业应用。在这项工作中，对混合润滑状态下的推力轴承表面进行了分析，然后进行了优化，旨在用于注塑成型的聚合物轴承。建立了一个耦合机械变形、边界润滑和固体接触的模型来研究推力轴承在负载平衡条件下的行为。该模型提供了重要量的预测，例如流体和固体接触的承载能力、最小薄膜厚度和接触压力。更重要的是，使用二次几何优化大尺度表面几何形状，并将该大尺度表面与来自测量表面的小尺度粗糙度叠加以形成优化表面。这种大规模的几何形状可能在聚合物推力轴承的注塑成型过程中得到控制，而粗糙度则更难以控制。与测量表面的流体承载能力相比，优化表面的流体承载能力增加了一倍以上。