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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present the effect of the preload on the static characteristics of three-lobe bearings lubricated with a fluid blended with high polymer additives modeled as a couple stress fluid. Design/methodology/approach Based on the micro-continuum theory, the modified Reynolds equation for couple stress fluids is solved using a finite difference method to obtain the distribution of the pressure, the load-carrying capacity, the attitude angle, the friction coefficient and the side leakage for various values of the couple stress parameter and the preload factor. Findings The results show that the presence of a couple stress in the lubricants improves the static characteristics of this type of bearing compared to those lubricated with Newtonian fluids for any value of the preload factor. Thus, it is found that the preload significantly affects the performance of the three-lobe journal bearing lubricated with a couple stress fluid or a Newtonian fluid. Moreover, the investigation showed that increasing the preload factor exhibits an increase in the load carrying capacity and the attitude angle, but it decreases the friction coefficient and the side leakage especially at a lower preload factor. Furthermore, using a couple stress fluid and a higher preload factor led to a significant rise in the load carrying capacity and a significant reduction in the friction coefficient. Practical implications This study helped improve the performance characteristics of the three-lobe journal bearing. Originality/value The presence of couple stress in the lubricants improves the static characteristics of this type of bearing compared to those lubricated with Newtonian fluids for any value of the preload factor. The usage of the couple stress fluid and the higher preload factor led to a significant rise in the load carrying capacity and a significant reduction in the friction coefficient.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of liner surface texture on journal bearing performance. Modeling the profile curvature of the dimples or grooves is planned for different cases of texture surface under thermo-hydrodynamic condition (THD). The aim of this paper is to determine the effect the texture surface on the performance of journal bearing and specify the optimum shape for texture dimples. Design/methodology/approach The paper was opted for an exploratory study by applying finite difference method to solve the energy equation, the heat conduction equations and the Reynolds equation numerically. The lubricant film thickness is divided to a mesh of 640,000 points. The equations were solved for each point of the mesh by using a MATLAB code. For texture shape optimization, 24 cases of different texture shapes were selected which includes elliptical, triangle and square curvature shape. Findings The paper provides theoretical insights about the effect of texture shape on journal bearing performance. It was concluded that to get a high load-carrying capacity, the direction of curvature is preferably to be perpendicular to the sliding direction. The convex texture has higher load carrying capacity than concave texture. Finally, the surface with textures in channel form yields better overall performance than the surface with several dimples. Originality/value This paper fulfils an identified need to study how texture surface affects the performance of journal bearing under thermo-hydrodynamic conditions.