Effect of Journal Out-Of-Roundness On Stability of A Symmetric Hydrodynamic Journal Bearing System. Part 1: Theoretical Analysis

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Original Article
Effect of journal out-of-roundness on

stability of a symmetric hydrodynamic
journal bearing system.
Part 1: Theoretical analysis
Proc IMechE Part J:

J Engineering Tribology
0(0) 112
! IMechE 2015
Reprints and permissions:
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DOI: 10.1177/1350650115579211
pij.sagepub.com
Wubin Xu1,2, Peter J Ogrodnik2, Bing Li1, Hongxian Zhang1 and

Shanghan Gao1
Abstract
The study examines the effect of journal out-of-roundness on the dynamic performance of rotating machines supported
by oil film bearings. A general model of a symmetric hydrodynamic journal bearing system allowing for journal out-ofroundness is presented. The results show that the journal out-of-roundness influences the oil film thickness and further
influences the dynamic characteristics of the system. The journal out-of-roundness may incur an additional vibration
component when the system operates. The amplitude of this vibration component is dependent upon the magnitude of
the journal out-of-roundness, while the frequency of which is an integral multiple of the synchronous vibration frequency,
depending upon the profile of journal out-of-roundness. Although journal out-of-roundness may increase overall system
stability, when dimensionless out-of-roundness is below 0.2, there is little effect; between 0.2 and 0.4, stability is
improved but vibration levels are high. When the dimensionless journal out-of-roundness is larger than 0.5, the theoretical analysis shows much uncertainty on the system stability and the boundary of oil film instability is not very clear, this
needs further examination from both theoretical and experimental evidences. The system designer should balance
between the stability and the vibration level at the design stage.
Keywords
Hydrodynamic journal bearing, stability, effect, journal out-of-roundness, theoretical analysis
Date received: 12 August 2014; accepted: 4 March 2015
Introduction
Hydrodynamic journal bearings, which are characterized by simple structure, convenient manufacturing,
low cost, and smooth operation at high speed, are
widely used to provide supports for very large, high
speed, and heavily loaded rotating machinery, such as
turbine generators. However, the operation of the
journal bearing system may not always be stable. In
certain circumstance, depending on the design parameters and the operating conditions, the oil lm may be
prone to instability.1,2 This oil lm instability usually
shows in a form of oil whirl vibration, which is a
sub-synchronous vibration of the journal within the
oil lm bearings and usually occurs at about half the
journal rotational frequency. It may result in high
levels of vibration, noise, working stress, and even
the destruction of the machine.3
Since the oil lm instability was rst experimentally
investigated by Newkirk and Taylor4 in 1924, there
have been many theoretical methods for estimating
the onset of oil lm instability. However, most of
the studies on dynamic performances of hydrodynamic journal bearing system are based on the
assumption that the journal is perfectly circular.
From a manufacturing viewpoint, the journal is
restricted by allowable geometrical tolerances in manufacturing process, such as the out-of-roundness.
Although the absolute size of the roundness error of
a journal is very small, when compared with the bearing clearance it is large enough to generate remarkable
eects on system dynamic performance. Therefore, it
is necessary to examine and understand the eect of
journal out-of-roundness on system dynamic performance, espectially the stability of the system.
1
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Guangxi University of Science and

Technology, Liuzhou, Guangxi, China
2
Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Technology, Staffordshire
University, Stafford, Staffordshire, UK
Corresponding author:
Wubin Xu, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Guangxi University of
Science and Technology, 268, Donghuan Road, Liuzhou 545006, China.
Email: xuwub@163.com
Downloaded from pij.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA on August 26, 2015
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Proc IMechE Part J: J Engineering Tribology 0(0)
Early in 1977, Radford and Fitzgeorge5 presented

an experimental investigation on the eect of journal
lobbing, which may be considered as the manufacturing roundness error, on the performance of a hydrodynamic plain journal bearing. Seven accurately
ground journals with nominal 44.25 mm diameter
and 63.5 mm wide were made. One was cylindrical
and the others had three, four, ve, six, nine, or
twelve equispaced lobes, 0.025 mm high, on their peripheries. Each journal was tted into a cylindrical
lead-bronze bearing liner with a radial working clearance of 0.05 mm and operated at speeds of up to
1000 r/min and at bearing loads of up to 10 kN
whilst the oil pressure was maintained at or just
above atmospheric pressure. By comparing the
lobed journals and the cylindrical journal, the experiment results showed that there are no signicant differences in the load-carrying capacity of the bearing
and in the higher portion of the loading range the
boundary lubrication conditions are improved when
using three- or four-lobed journals whilst the presence
of lobes on the other journals produces only a slightly
adverse eect. The author concluded that the eect of
lobbing is not detrimental but is slightly benecial to
the performance of the bearing when operated within
the range of speeds and loads used. Although the
author presented detailed experimental results to
demonstrate the eect of journal out-of-roundness
on the system performance, the investigation did not
include a theoretical analysis and neither did it involve
stability analysis of the system. In 1981, Poznyak and
Maiorov6 presented a theoretical calculation of rotor
vibration caused by out-of-roundness of shafts in
plain bearings. The shaft out-of-roundness was
described as an ellipse. The study set up an oil lm
model with linear stiness and damping coecients
and calculated the amplitudefrequency characteristic
of the bearing system. The results showed that the
rotor vibration caused by shaft out-of-roundness
was signicant and the vibration frequency was
approximate double frequency of the system operation. However, the investigation did not involve the
stability analysis of the bearing system. Pande and
Somasundaram7 presented a theoretical analysis of
the eect of manufacturing errors on the performance
of aerostatic journal bearings. The investigation was
carried out to study the inuence of geometrical form
errors including ovality, lobbing, and cylindricity and
roughness patterns such as one-dimensional longitudinal roughness and two-dimensional isotropic roughness. The results showed that manufacturing errors
which cause deviations from ideal surface geometry
signicantly aect the performance characteristics of
aerostatic journal bearings. Form errors such as ovality, lobbing, and cylindricity were generally shown to
reduce the load-carrying capacity by 1012%, and
increase the ow rate by 67% compared with an
ideal bearing. Although the investigation was based
on aerostatic journal bearings, it does provide
a method to establish a model allowing for manufacturing errors of roundness, cylindricity, and roughness. Unfortunately, the investigation did not
involve the stability analysis of the system and the
theory was not validated by experimental evidence.
Dong8 examined the eects of manufacturing errors
on the performance of gas lubricated journal bearings.
The eects of machining errors, round error, and
cylindrical error on bearing performance were analyzed by a nite element method. The results
showed that the eects of machining errors on bearing
performance are related to the error type and parameters, and the acceptable out-of-roundness and
cylindrical machining errors should be controlled to
within the range of 20% to 30% of the average lm
thickness. Although the investigation is based on gas
lubricated journal bearings, it illustrates the fact
that out-of-roundness and cylindrical machining
error are signicant in aecting bearing operation.
Vijayaraghavan et al.9 and Iwamoto and Tanaka10
examined the inuence of manufacturing error of
roundness of bearing bush. The authors suggested
that the manufacturing error of roundness of bearing
bush should be restricted to small value as possible.
Velsher et al.11 presented a new mathematical model
for the characterization of form error and surface
roughness of round bearings. The authors suggested
that the bearing designer must take the journal out-ofroundness into account while designing bearings.
Although there have been limited studies on the
eects of bearing geometric manufacturing tolerances, there has been no theoretical investigation
into the eect of journal out-of-roundness on the
system stability. This study aims to present a theoretical model allowing for journal out-of-roundness to
determine and demonstrate the eect of journal outof-roundness on system stability. Part 1 of this study
focuses on setting up a theoretical model to examine
the eect of journal out-of-roundness on system performances and to predict the onset of oil lm
instability. Part 2 will focus on presenting an experimental invesigation in association with the theoretical analysis.
Modeling of oil film instability allowing

for journal out-of-roundness
To determine the onset of oil lm instability, a widely
accepted method is to analyze the transient responses
of the journal, which may be obtained by integrating
the equations of motion based on a time-marching
solution.1,3 Figure 1 illustrates a dynamic model of a
symmetric rigid rotor bearing system. Assuming the
journal to be momentarily displaced from its static
equilibrium position, the net force acting on the journal, allowing for gravity and imbalance loads as well
as oil lm forces, is equal to the product of journal
acceleration and eective journal mass, as shown in
equation (1). The instantaneous journal displacements,
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xj and yj may be obtained by integrating equation (2)

with respect to time, using an appropriate method such
as Eulers method.1,12
Fbx mu ru !2 cos!t mr x
Fby mu ru !2 sin!t mr g mr y
Fbx mu ru !2 cos!t
mr
Fby mu ru !2 sin!t mr g
y
mr
by the following equation which is derived by the bearing structural parameters and the angular position3

"2 c 2
h c 1 " cos
sin
2 rj
Considering the clearance is very small compared

to the radius of journal, the higher order term
(c"2 sin2 =2rj ) is generally about 0.2% of the rst
order term. Thus, equation (4) may be simplied as
h c1 " cos
The oil lm forces Fbx and Fby applied to the journal depend upon both position and motion of the
journal, as shown in equation (3), and may be
obtained by numerical integration of the pressure
eld estimated using a nite-dierence solution of
Reynolds equation at each new position and each
time interval.1

Fbx Fbx ", , xj , yj , x_ j , y_ j , !, t

Fby Fby ", , xj , yj , x_ j , y_ j , !, t
However, for a journal with consideration of its

out-of-roundness, to obtain the oil lm pressure
eld needs to calculate the oil lm thickness and oil
lm surface velocity and squeeze lm velocity, which
are dierent from an ideal circular journal.
Oil film thickness allowing for journal

out-of-roundness
Figure 2 gives an exaggerated prole of a journal in
perfect circular bearing bush. For a plain cylindrical
journal bearing, as showed in Figure 1, the oil lm
thickness h in circumferential direction may be given
When considering the manufacturing roundness

error of the journal, the variation of the oil lm thickness along circumferential direction will not only
depend upon the journal bearing structural parameters and the angular position but also the geometric
prole of the out-of-roundness and even the angular
position of the journal, which may be expressed by the
angular velocity of the journal (x) and the time (t), i.e.

h h c, ", , rj , , rp , !, t
where rp is a prole function indicating the prole of

out-of-roundness, which may be elliptical, multilobbed, or random displaced.
At any polar angle in a polar coordinates system
where the prole function is created, as showed in
Figure 2, the radial coordinate of the prole may be
denoted as rp().
Assuming at time t, the polar axis of the coordinates system rotates with the journal to an angle xt, as
showed in Figure 2, the radial coordinate of the prole at any angular position may be derived by calculating its polar angle
rp rp

!t
2
The dierence between the actual radius of any a

given point on journal surface and the nominal radius
of the journal is
h rp rj
Therefore, the oil lm thickness with consideration

of journal out-of-roundness may be derived from the
thickness equation for perfect journal by subtracting
the radius dierence h, i.e.
h h0 h
c1 " cos
"2 c 2
sin rp rj
2 rj
2
c1 " cos
Figure 1. A dynamic model of a symmetric rigid rotor
bearing system.
" c 2
sin rp rj
2 rj
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Figure 2. An exaggerated profile of the journal in perfect circular bearing.
In this way, the oil lm thickness may be obtained

based on the thickness for an ideal circular journal
and the roundness prole function, which may be
elliptical, multilobed, or random displaced.
Oil film velocities

To obtain the solution to Reynolds equation
expressed as equation (10) requires the determination
of surface tangential velocity Ut and squeeze lm velocity Un @h=@t at any a point on the oil lm surface.
These velocities not only come from the rotation of
the journal about its centre but also from the instantaneous movement of the journal itself.

@ h3 @p
@ h3 @p
@
@ h
6 Ut h 12
@x @x
@z @z
@x
@t
10
For a plain circular journal bearing in steady-state
situation, the journal is considered to be running at
the equilibrium position and it is assumed that there is
no motion of the journal centre. The surface tangential velocity Ut and squeeze lm velocity Un are
U t ! rj
Un 0
11
For a plain circular journal bearing in the translational whirling mode the journal is assumed to be
parallel to the bearing bush, and the surface
tangential velocity Ut and squeeze lm velocity Un

of the oil lm may be determined from both rotational
velocity and translational movement speed of the
journal.
If the instantaneous movement velocity of the journal centre at any time t is represented in terms of
horizontal and vertical velocity components, denoted
as Vx and Vy respectively, the surface tangential velocity Ut and squeeze lm velocity Un of the oil lm at
any position angle , as shown in Figure 3, may be
calculated by discomposing Vx and Vy along tangential and normal directions
Ut ! rj Vx cos Vy sin
Un Vx sin Vy cos
12
For a journal bearing with consideration of manufacturing roundness error of the journal, the variation
of oil lm thickness within a small time interval t is
needed to be taken into account. Based on equation
(12), the surface tangential velocity Ut and squeeze
lm velocity Un of the oil lm at any position angle
may be calculated by the following equations:
Ut ! rp Vx cos Vy sin
ht htt
Vx sin Vy cos
Un
t
13
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Figure 3. Surface velocities of oil film.
where ht() represents the oil lm thickness at time t,

ht-t() at time t-t.
Assessment of system stability threshold speed

A previous publication1 of the author presented a
theoretical model that determines system stability
and a standard stability map predicted by the
model. When a journal bearing system operating
speed increases, it will follow a running track from
a stable region into an unstable region, as shown in
Figure 4. The horizontal axis of the stability map
represents the dimensionless eccentricity ratio e/c,
while the vertical axis is the dimensionless operating
parameter which indicates the system operating state
and is expressed as
F
Fs
mr c!2
14
where Fs is the shaft load acting upon the bearing. The

operating speed at which the running track crosses the
boundary separating the stable regime and the
unstable regime is the system stability threshold
speed.
The boundary in the stability map may be determined by analyzing transient responses of journal
centre when a system operates at dierent eccentricity
ratios. The predicted journal locus suggests the stability of the system. If the locus decays to a single point
or a small stable orbit, then the system is stable; if
however, the locus diverges then the system is
unstable; stability threshold is mathematically dened

as the speed at which a constant sub-synchronous
orbit is produced as shown in Figure 4. As
Ogrodnik1 suggested, logarithmic decrement may be
used as a stability predictor. If it is greater than zero,
the system is stable, if less than zero unstable; hence, a
value of zero suggests threshold speed.
Effect of journal out-of-roundness on

system dynamic performance
To present the eect of journal roundness error on
system dynamic performance by the methodology in
this study, an elliptical prole of journal out-ofroundness is taken as an example, as suggested by
Radford and Fitzgeorge,5 Vijayaraghavan et al.,9
and Iwamoto and Tanaka.10
As shown in Figure 5, a dash dot line circle refers
to a perfect circular journal, the radius of which is
denoted as rj. Therefore, the length of major axis of
the ellipse is
ae rj r
15
while the length of minor axis of the ellipse is

be r j
16
If the journal center Oj is set as the pole of an polar

coordinate system, the major axis of the ellipse is set
as the polar axis, as shown in Figure 3, then, for any
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Figure 4. A dimensionless stability map.
It may be further deduced into

q
rp ae cos p 2 be sin p 2
q
rj r cos p 2 rj sin p 2
q
rj 2 2rj rcos2 p r2 cos2 p
q
rj 1 2r=rj cos2 p r=rj 2 cos2 p
Figure 5. An elliptical profile of journal out-of-roundness.
point on the elliptical journal surface with an position

angle , the polar angle p and polar radius rp may be
respectively deduced
p =2 !t
=2 !t
17
where xt indicates the rotational angle when the journal rotates for a time t.
Based on the equation of ellipse in polar coordinates system, the polar radius rp may be calculated by
following equations
r2p ae cos p 2 be sin p 2
18
19
The prole function rp is then substituted into

equations presented in section Modeling of oil lm
instability allowing for journal out-of-roundness to
obtain the oil lm forces and system transient
responses. The results show that the manufacturing
error of journal roundness not only inuences the
oil lm thickness, but also inuences the squeeze
lm velocity which is no longer equal zero, and further inuences the dynamic characteristics of the
system.
Effect on oil film thickness

Figure 6 illustrates a comparison of oil lm thickness
variations in the circumferential direction of an exemplied journal bearing system whose operating parameters are described in Table 1, and the
dimensionless out-of-roundness er is assumed as
0.4 to 0.4. The positive er means the major axis of
the ellipse caused by manufacturing error of roundness extend along the polar axis, while negative er
means retract along the polar axis. If er equals zero,
it means that the journal is a perfect circle.
Figure 6 shows that the oil lm thickness decreases
with the increases of journal out-of-roundness when it
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Figure 6. Comparison of oil film thickness variations.
Figure 7. Comparison of transient responses against

operating time (N 3000 r/min).
Table 1. Operating parameters of a hypothetical system.

Parameters
Length of the bearing (mm)
Diameter of the bearing (mm)
Diameter of the journal (mm)
Length/Diameter ratio
Radial clearance(mm)
Oil type (dynamic viscosity)
Nominal
dimensions
50
50
49.2
1:1
0.4
Shell Oil T22
(Dynamic viscosity,
l 22 MPa.s)
is positive, this is due to the positive roundness error

tends to expand the journal diameter to decrease the
clearance between the journal and the bearing, while
the negative roundness error tends to increase the oil
lm thickness. This variation in oil lm thickness
occurred on the elliptical journal will obviously inuence the oil lm forces and the system dynamic
characteristics.
Effect on system transient responses

The journal out-of-roundness not only inuences the
oil lm thickness, but also inuences the system transient reposes. Figure 7 presents a comparison of the
predicted transient responses of the journal bearing
system described in Table 1, the journal being
assigned with a number of out-of-roundness values.
The responses are obtained using the method
described above and the system operated at a low
rotating speed. The vibration amplitude of the journal
is presented as a journal displacement from the bearing centre expressed as a dimensionless group by
dividing it by the bearing radial clearance, the horizontal axis represents the operating time.
Figure 7 shows that the amplitude of journal vibration incurred by the journal out-of-roundness
increases with the increase of the magnitude of
Figure 8. Frequency spectrum of the unbalance response

(er 0.2, fn 50 Hz).
out-of-roundness, while the journal eccentricity

tends to decrease. For a bearing with a perfect circular
journal, the journal vibration tends to be converged
to a steady point; for a bearing with certain journal
out-of-roundness, the system response tends to be
dominated by a vibration with a double-synchronous
frequency incurred by journal out-of-roundness, the
amplitude of which depends upon the magnitude of
the out-of-roundness.
Figure 8 shows the frequency spectrum of the journal vibration when the system described above with
er 0.2 runs into a steady state, i.e. the second half
of the operating time. An out-of-balance of 0.4 kgm2
is also added to the journal to illustrate a synchronous
frequency component of the vibration. The rotational
speed is N 3000 r/min, the frequency of the rotation
is fn 50 Hz. The frequency spectrum shows that the
system vibration is dominated by both the synchronous vibration with frequency of fn incurred by the
rotor out-of-balance and the double-synchronous frequency vibration with frequency of 2fn incurred by the
journal out-of-roundness.
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Effect on system stability

To show the eect of journal out-of-roundness on
system stability, Figures 9 to 12 illustrate a comparison of the predicted transient responses of journal
bearing systems between a perfect circular journal
and an elliptical journal with a dimensionless roundness error er 0.1 as an example. The operating parameters of the journal bearing system are described in
Table 1. The operating speed of the rotor is
N 3000 r/min, 3818 r/min, 3927 r/min, and 4200 r/

min respectively, and the initial position of journal
is " 0.3, 45, the initial translational speed is
zero. The responses are obtained using the method
presented in this paper.
Figure 9 shows that the vibration amplitude of the
bearing system with a perfect circular journal tends to
decrease and converge to a steady position which indicates that the system is stable when the rotors rotating speed is N 3000 r/min. When considering the
Figure 9. Comparison of transient trajectories when N 3000 r/min.
Figure 10. Comparison of transient trajectories when N 3818 r/min: (a) er 0, logarithmic decrement ld 0.843 104, er 0.1,
logarithmic decrement ld 0.0404.
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Figure 11. Comparison of transient trajectories when N 3927 r/min: er 0, logarithmic decrement ld -0.0430; (b) er 0.1,
logarithmic decrement ld 0.0103.
Figure 12. Comparison of transient trajectories when N 4200 r/min: (a) er 0; (b) er 0.1.
journal with a manufacturing roundness error of

er 0.1, the vibration amplitude also decreases with
time. However, the trajectory of the rotor can not
converge to a steady point but a small ellipse instead
which is dependant on the magnitude of journal outof-roundness and the rotational speed. In this case,
the translational movement of the rotor along the
ellipse is not incurred by the sub-synchronous oil
whirling whose vibration frequency is generally
equal to half the rotational frequency but incurred
by the journal out-of-roundness with a vibration
frequency of 2fn, therefore, the system is considered

as stable.
When the system operating speed goes up to
3818 r/min which is the stability threshold speed for
the system with the perfect circular journal, which was
obtained by using the theoretical method presented
above, the journal repeats the translational movement
along the same orbit, as illustrated in Figure 10. The
calculated logarithmic decrement is ld 0.843 104
which is approximately equal to zero in this case indicates that the system is at the stability threshold.
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10
However, for the elliptical journal with a manufacturing roundness error of er 0.1 running at the same
speed, the calculated logarithmic decrement is
ld 0.0404, which indicates that the journal orbit
tends to be convergent and the system is stable.
Figure 11 illustrates the system transient responses
when the rotational speed goes up to 3927 r/min. The
gure shows that the perfect circular journal bearing
system is unstable due to the orbit tends to be divergent, and the calculated logarithmic decrement of
ld 0.0430 also indicates that the system is unstable.
At the same running speed, for the bearing with a
manufacturing roundness error of er 0.1, the journal
trajectory converts into a bounded orbit, which is neither divergent nor convergent. Although the shape
showed in Figure 11(b) is not as regular as that of
the system with the perfect circular journal due to
the disturbance of double-synchronous frequency
vibration incurred by the journal out-of-roundness,
the calculated logarithmic decrement of ld 0.0103
indicates that the system is close to the stability
threshold.
Figure 12 illustrates a comparison of the predicted
transient responses when both systems operate at a
high rotating speed, 4200 r/min as an example. Both
the journal orbits become divergent indicating that
the systems are unstable.
For a rotor bearing system with a journal out-ofroundness error, Figures 9 to 12 indicates the method
to determine the system stability threshold speed,
which may be used to generate a stability map with
consideration of journal out-of-roundness. The gures also show that a small out-of-roundness error
may increase the system stability, although at the
cost of introducing a double-synchronous vibration
component.
To obtain a generalized eect of manufacturing
roundness error of journal on the system stability,
the stability threshold analysis may be repeated for
the rotor bearing systems with varied parameters.
The results are presented by the traditional stability
map as discussed in authors previous paper.2
Figure 13 shows that when the dimensionless journal out-of-roundness er is small, e.g. er 0.1, the stability boundary drawn in stability map is close to that
of a perfect circular journal bearing system. The shape
and the position of the stability boundary vary with
an increase of journal out-of-roundness. The larger
the out-of-roundness er, the lower stability boundary
is in the stability map, indicating that the manufacturing error of journal roundness tends to stabilize the
system. The gure also shows that a notable decrease
of threshold operating parameter F usually occurs in
the range of eccentricity ratio from 0.2 to 0.6 which is
inferred that the system parameters should be
designed in this range to make the system more
stable. The journal out-of-roundness has little inuence on the system stability when " 0.60.7.
However, the amplitude of rotor vibration incurred
Figure 13. Effect of journal out-of-roundness on system

stability (er 0.10.4).
Figure 14. Effect of journal out-of-roundness on ratio of

fw/fn (er 0.10.4).
by the journal out-of-roundness increases with an

increase of journal out-of-roundness, the system
designer should balance between the stability and
the journal vibration amplitude at design stage.
Figure 14 illustrates the relationship between ratio
of oil whirl vibration frequency fw to rotor rotating
frequency fn and eccentricity ratio. Oil whirl vibration
frequency is commonly 0.460.5 fn (eccentricity ratio
"<0.7), which may be used to determine the instability
onset speed for a given rotor bearing system by calculating the frequency of vibration at oil whirl onset and
multiplying this value by 2 to obtain the rotational
frequency of the rotor.3 The results show that the
manufacturing roundness error of a journal does not
change the relationship between the frequency ratio
and eccentricity ratio. It is interesting to note that the
calculated results show that the frequency ratio is
equal to 0.48828 when eccentricity ratio " < 0.7, and
the ratio does not change with the magnitude of journal out-of-roundness.
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Conclusions
The presented work gives a general solution to model
and analyze the eect of manufacturing error of journal
roundness on the dynamic performance of journal bearing system. The results show that the journal out-ofroundness not only inuences the oil lm thickness,
but also inuences the oil lm forces and further inuences the dynamic characteristics of the system. The
journal out-of-roundness may incur an additional vibration component when the system operates. The amplitude of this vibration component is dependent upon the
magnitude of the journal out-of-roundness, while the
frequency of which is an integral multiple of synchronous vibration frequency fn, depending upon the prole
of journal out-of-roundness. Within the range of eccentricity ratio from 0.2 to 0.6, the manufacturing error of
journal roundness tends to stabilize the system, but
instead, the amplitude of journal vibration incurred by
the journal out-of-roundness increases. The results predicted by the study show good correlations with the
experimental results that the eect of journal out-ofroundness is not detrimental but is slightly benecial
to the performance of the bearing when operated
within certain range of speeds and loads.5 Although
journal out-of-roundness may increase overall system
stability, when dimensionless out-of-roundness er is
below 0.2, there is little eect; between 0.2 and 0.4, stability is improved but vibration levels are high. When
the dimensionless journal out-of-roundness er is larger
than 0.5, the theoretical analysis shows much uncertainty on the system stability and the boundary of oil
lm instability is not very clear, this needs further examination from both theoretical and experimental evidences. The system designer should balance between
the stability and the vibration level at the design stage.
3. Goodwin MJ. Dynamics of rotor-bearing systems.

London: Unwin Hyman, 1989.
4. Newkirk BL and Taylor HD. Shaft whipping due to oil
action in journal bearings. General Electric Review
1925; 559568.
5. Radford A and Fitzgeorge D. The effects of journal
lobing on the performance of a hydrodynamic plain
journal bearing. Wear 1977; 45(3): 311322.
6. Poznyak EL and Maiorov GP. The calculation of rotor
vibration caused by out-of-roundness of shafts in plain
bearings. Energomashinostroenie 1981; 11: 711.
7. Pande SS and Somasundaram S. Effect of manufacturing errors on the performance of aerostatic journal
bearings. Wear 1981; 66(2): 145156.
8. Dong WH. Effect of manufacturing errors on performance of gas lubricated journal bearing. J Nanjing Univ
Aeronaut Astronaut 1994; 26(5): 635641.
9. Vijayaraghavan D, Brewe DE and Keith TG. Effect of
out-of-roundness on the performance of a diesel engine
connecting-rod bearing. NASA Technical Report, 92C-029, 1991.
10. Iwamoto K and Tanaka K. Influence of manufacturing
error of roundness for characteristics of cylindrical
journal bearing. Tribol Interf Eng Ser 2005; 48:
751754.
11. Velsher B, Osman MOM and Sankar TS. Stochastic
characterization of macro- and microerrors of journal
bearing roundness. J Manuf Sci Eng 1977; 99(2):
327334.
12. Xu WB. The effect of manufacturing tolerances on the
steady state and dynamic performance of rotating
machines supported by hydrodynamic bearings. PhD
Thesis, Staffordshire University, UK, 2010.
Appendix
Notation
ae
Funding
The research was supported by National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Project number: 51265004, 50865001,
51105084) and Guangxi Natural Science Foundation (Project
number: 2011GXNSFF018004). The supports are gratefully
acknowledged.
Conflict of interest
be
c
Db
dj
e
er
Fbx
None declared.
References
1. Ogrodnik PJ, Xu WB, Goodwin MJ, et al. A theoretical
investigation of the use of 2k factorial analysis to determine the effects of dimensional manufacturing tolerances
on the stability of hydrodynamic journal bearing systems. Proc IMechE, Part J: J Engineering Tribology
2011; 225(8): 731739.
2. Ogrodnik PJ, Xu WB, Goodwin MJ, et al. The effects of
dimensional manufacturing tolerances on stability of a
symmetric hydrodynamic journal bearing rotor system
an experimental investigation. Proc IMechE, Part J: J
Engineering Tribology 2011; 225(12): 11521158.
Fby
Fs
F
fn
fw
g
h
h0
ld
length of the major axis of the ellipse

(m)
length of the minor axis of the ellipse
(m)
bearing radial clearance (m)
bearing diameter (m)
journal diameter (m)
journal eccentricity from bearing center
(m)
nondimensional out-of-roundness
horizontal component of oil film force
(N)
vertical component of oil film force (N)
bearing load (N)
dimensionless operating parameter, Fs/
mcx2
rotor rotating frequency (Hz)
oil whirl vibration frequency (Hz)
acceleration of gravity (m/s2)
oil film thickness (m)
film thickness of a perfect circular
journal (m)
logarithmic decrement
XML Template (2015)

[31.3.201511:57am]
(PIJ)
[112]
[PREPRINTER stage]
12
mr
mu
N
rj
ru
rp
S
t
Un
Ut
Vx
Vy
x
y

half rotor mass (kg)
half the rotor out-of-balance mass (kg)
shaft rotational speed (rev/s)
radius of journal (m)
radius of rotor out-of-balance mass (m)
radial coordinate of the out-of-roundness profile (m)
b rj 2
Sommerfeld number S NLD
Fs c
(dimensionless)
time (s)
squeeze film velocity (m/s)
journal surface speed (m/s)
horizontal velocity component of journal (m/s)
vertical velocity component of journal
(m/s)
shaft horizontal displacement (m)
shaft vertical displacement (m)
_ y_
x,
y
x,
h
r
t
e
l
x
u

p
velocity in horizontal and vertical axes

(m/s)
acceleration in horizontal and vertical
axes (m/s)
difference between the actual radius of
any given point on a journal surface
and the nominal radius of journal (m)
out-of-roundness (m)
time interval (s)
bearing eccentricity ratio, e/c
dynamic viscosity of oil (Ns/m2)
shaft angular velocity (rad/s)
attitude angle (rad)
density of lubricant (kg/m3)
angular position (rad)
angular position in polar coordinates
system (rad)

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