INERTIA EFFECTS IN POROUS SQUEEZE FILM BIOBEARING WITH ROUGH SURFACES LUBRICATED BY A POWER-LAW FLUID

The flow of a power-law lubricant in a squeeze film biobearing with one porous wall is considered. Generally, the biobearing may be modelled by two curvilinear rough surfaces and the porous wall adherent to the curved nonporous surface. The flow in the biobearing clearance is considered with inertia and the Navier-Stokes and Poisson equations which are uncoupled by using the Morgan-Cameron approximation. Using the Christensen stochastic model of a surface roughness, a closed-form solution is obtained. A step biobearing is discussed as an example. It is shown that the inertia effects, power-law exponents, and surface roughness influence the biobearing performance considerably.