A new film element is available among many other new features in the SOLVIA Finite Element System. The new film element can be used on its own or together with the structural and continuum elements in the SOLVIA System to model oil film bearings in a coupled analysis of pressure, temperature and deformations/stresses.

Both radial journal bearings and axial thrust bearings of fixed-geometry or tilting pad type can be analyzed. See Oil Film Applications (PDF).

The film element viscosity can be specified to be a function of both temperature and pressure.

The oil film pressure along the film boundaries can be prescribed to be constant or varying.

The temperature analysis employs an unsymmetric conductivity matrix and considers transport of heat by film convection and conduction.

The oil film may be bounded by deformable bodies to model the elastic and thermal deformations of the bearing and rotor as well as the transport of the generated heat. The oil film thickness is updated for the deformed locations of the film surfaces.

Constraints are available for an oil film segment to prescribe that the oil flow at an inlet boundary is a specified mixture of reservoir oil and the oil flow from the outlet boundary of the neighboring segment.

Integrated pre- and postprocessing capabilities can be used for model generation and for display of, for example, pressure, temperature, power loss and thickness of the film. Summation of quantities to obtain, for example, load capacity and total power loss is also possible.