Monte carlo risk assessment for journal bearing

The journal bearings are widely used in machinery due to their small size, low price, and capability of carrying load. However, if its design and maintenance is inappropriate, the use of journal bearings will suffer from some problem such as high temperature and instability. As a nonlinear system, there are large number of factors affecting the performance of journal bearing. Therefore, journal bearings require great care in design and maintenance. Although the checking calculation has been carried out during the design process, nominal value of design parameters is usual used to prognosis the bearing performance characteristics. However, in practice, these parameters always vary within a certain range. Although the design is feasible in theory, there remains a possibility of fault in practice. In order to have an effective initial assessment of the risks which the journal bearings may encounter under actual condition, a modeling framework for simulating the performance of journal bearing is presented and Monte Carlo analysis was performed to evaluate the distribution of the performance parameters. A comparison of three designs was performed. The result proved that the rational selection of the clearance fits for journal bearings can effectively reduce the risk of failure.