Linear extended state observer-based control of active lubrication for active hydrostatic journal bearing by monitoring bearing clearance

Purpose This paper’s aim is modeling and simulation of an advanced controller design for a novel mechatronics system that consists of a hydrostatic journal bearing with servo control. The proposed mechatronic system has more worth in tribology applications as compared to the traditional hydrostatic bearing which has limited efficiency and poor performance because of lower stiffness and load-carrying capacity. The proposed mechatronic system takes advantage of active lubrication to improve stiffness, rotor’s stability and load-carrying capacity. Design/methodology/approach The current work proposes extended state observer-based controller to control the active lubrication for hydrostatic journal bearing. The advantage of using observer is to estimate unknown state variables and lumped effects because of unmodeled dynamics, model uncertainties, and unknown external disturbances. The effectiveness of the proposed mechatronic system is checked against the traditional hydrostatic bearing. Findings Proposed mechatronics active hydrostatic journal bearing system is checked against traditional hydrostatic journal bearing. It is found that novel active hydrostatic journal bearing with servo control has good tribology performance factors such as stiffness, less rotor vibration, no wear and friction under starting conditions and high load-carrying capacity under different conditions of spindle speed, temperature, initial oil pressure and external disturbance. The result shows that proposed mechatronics system has more worth in rotary tribology applications. Originality/value The current manuscript designs a novel active hydrostatic journal bearing system with servo control. The mathematical model has advantages in term of estimating unknown state variables and lumped effects because of unmodeled dynamics, model uncertainties and unknown external disturbances. The result shows improvement in dynamic characteristics of a hydrostatic journal bearing under different dynamic conditions.