This project will lower the design and analysis cost of hydro- static bearings through the development and verification of high Reynolds number modeling tools. IHPRPT objectives require smaller, lighter, and higher speed turbopumps. The rocket industry has turned to hydrostatic bearings to achieve these objectives. However, the high Reynolds number associated with these bearings, along with 3-D effects such as tangential injection, make past design assumptions obsolete.Industry is primarily using 2-D, bulk-flow design tools to predict the performance of hydrostatic bearings. The performance of these bearings is highly dependent upon the pressure in the recess. Current tools assume the pressure is uniform; however, research has shown the pressure to be highly non-uniform with variations in excess of an order-of-magnitude. The objective of this program is to measure the recess pressure field and use this data to improve current 2-D design codes and anchor future 3-D codes.During Phase I, AFAB Technologies will design, fabricate, and test a hydrostatic bearing/sensor configuration and demonstrate the capability to measure the pressure profile throughout the recess. In addition, AFAB will identify modifications necessary to its bearing design system, HYDROB, to incorporate non-uniform pressure variations within the recess into the solution of the bearing's performance.Commercial Applications:Successful implementation of this program will provide valuable data needed to improve the accuracy of current 2-D design tools and anchor future 3-D design codes. The 2-D design tool HYDROB will be made available to the commercial industry as well as the data for those who wish to modify other design tools, such as HYDROSEALT. With these new design tools, the cost of designing and analyzing hydrostatic bearings will be significantly reduced.
