The instability of the rotor dynamic system supported by oil journal bearing is encountered frequently, such as the half-speed whirl of the rotor, which is caused by oil film lubricant with nonlinearity. Currently, more attention is paid to the physical characteristics of oil film due to an oil-lubricated journal bearing being the important supporting component of the bearing-rotor systems and its nonlinear nature. In order to analyze the lubrication characteristics of journal bearings efficiently and save computational efforts, an approximate solution of nonlinear oil film forces of a finite length turbulent journal bearing with couple stress flow is proposed based on Sommerfeld and Ocvirk numbers. Reynolds equation in lubrication of a finite length turbulent journal bearing is solved based on multi-parametric principle. Load-carrying capacity of nonlinear oil film is obtained, and the results obtained by different methods are compared. The validation of the proposed method is verified, meanwhile, the relationships of load-carrying capacity versus eccentricity ratio and width-to-diameter ratio under turbulent and couple stress working conditions are analyzed. The numerical results show that both couple stress flow and eccentricity ratio have obvious influence on oil film pressure distribution, and the proposed method approximates the load-carrying capacity of turbulent journal bearings efficiently with various width-to-diameter ratios. This research proposes an approximate solution of oil film load-carrying capacity of turbulent journal bearings with different width-to-diameter ratios, which are suitable for high eccentricity ratios and heavy loads.
