Investigation of viscous fluid flow in an eccentrically deposited annulus using CFD methods

Abstract

The theory of fluid flow in an eccentrically deposited annulus has of great importance especially in the design of sliding bearings (axial, radial). If the geometry is more complex or shaft is deposited eccentrically, then a suitable alternative for design hydrostatic bearing is using ANSYS Fluent, which solves the general three-dimensional viscous fluid flow also in complex geometry. The problem of flow solves in the narrow gap between the cylinders in this paper, when the inner cylinder is stored with a defined eccentricity. The movement of the inner cylinder is composed of two motions (rotation, precession), i.e. rotation around its own axis and move along the circle whose radius is the size of the eccentricity. Addition the pressure gradient is considered in the axial direction. In the introductory section describes the methodology for defining of motions (rotation and precession of the inner cylinder) when the user function (UDF) is created that defines the rotation and move along the circle in C++. The above described methodology of the solution was then applied to the 3D model with a defined pressure drop when the problem was solved as a time-dependent with a time value corresponding to two turns of the internal shaft.