Estimation of axial force in turbocharger thrust bearing design optimization

Turbochargers are extremely important components of modern internal combustion engines, which provide a significant increase in power and efficiency. As their productivity increases, the mechanical load acting on the structural elements increases, including in the axial direction. In this regard, the problem of assessing the effectiveness of modern methods for calculating axial load arises. The purpose of this work is to assess the methods for determining the axial load acting on the turbocharger thrust bearing and optimize the design of tribounits to achieve the best hydromechanical characteristics. When calculating the axial forces acting on the rotor, two methods were used: the analytical method of the control volume and the method of numerical simulation. Numerical simulation was carried out in the commercial software package ANSYS Fluent. In the work, conclusions are made on the applicability of these methods in assessing the axial force, and parametric studies of the thrust bearing design are performed in the software developed by the authors. When changing the geometric characteristics, certain dependencies are revealed and the most effective configuration of the design is determined.
EDN: MOZQRW, https://elibrary/mozqrw

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