Experimental Investigation in a Hydrodynamic Taper Land Thrust Bearing

An experimental study is presented with the main objective of understanding the hydrodynamic behavior of a taper land thrust bearing with fixed geometry. The experimental results were obtained on an original test rig designed at the Pprime Institute. An extensive instrumentation of the thrust bearing allows a precise evaluation of various elements such as the temperature, the film thickness or the friction torque. The results are in good agreement with other literature surveys. However, an important difference of the measured parameters was found between the pads. The authors consider that this is most probably caused by the imperfections of the active surface produced during machining.