Computation of externally pressurized gas bearings characteristics via alternating directions methods

Computing the pressure distribution along the clearance of an externally pressurized gas bearing needs the solution of an elliptic partial differential equation. This is obtained via an alternating directions method combined with a special decomposition technique. The method can be implemented on digital and hybrid computers, and has some advantages from the point of view of computation speed and computer storage requirements. Three cases of practical interest are treated: numerical results are presented and problems of convergence are considered.