Differential Quadrature Method for the Analysis of Hydrodynamic Thrust Bearings

This paper presents the application of the method of generalized differential quadrature (GDQ) for the analysis of hydrodynamic thrust bearings. GDQ is a simple, efficient, high-order numerical technique and it uses the information on all grid points to approach the derivatives of the unknown function. The effectiveness of the solution technique is verified by comparing the GDQ computed results with the results of analytical solutions, FEM and FDM results from the published literature. It's seen from the results that GDQ method can easily compete with the existing methods of solution of lubrication problems in respect to its analytical simplicity, smaller computer storage requirements and capability of producing accurate results with very high computational efficiency.