Modelling and simulation of a compliant tilting pad air bearing

The compliant tilting pad air bearing concept, a tilting pad bearing with the pivot of the pads placed on radial springs, is a promising aerodynamic bearing solution. Nevertheless, its non-linear dynamics make a time domain dynamic simulation model an essential tool for the design of rotor systems with these bearings. Development of these dynamic simulation models is the subject of this paper that provides a detailed description of an extendible model of the compliant tilting pad air bearing concept suitable for non-linear time domain analysis. 2D and 3D time domain simulations implementing the model are discussed in detail and some of their capabilities to model the non-linear behaviour of the bearing concept are demonstrated with examples.