A study of the thermal characteristics of the leading edge groove and conventional tilting pad journal bearings

In this paper dealing with the tilting pad journal bearing, experimental results are presented which show that, at higher shaft speeds, the leading-edge-groove (LEG) design has significantly lower operating temperatures to those of the conventional design of tilting pad journal bearing. Subsequent theoretical analysis has shown that this reduction in pad operating temperature is the result of feeding cool oil directly to the leading edge of the pad. This has the effect of reducing the amount of hot oil carried over from one pad to the next.