The performance of non-circular bearings, such as multi-lobe bearings is influenced by many bearing parameters such as the number of lobes, the preload factor, and the tilt angle. In this study, the effects of bearing preload factor on the static performance characteristics of micropolar lubricated two-, three-, and four-lobe bearings are investigated. For this purpose, modified Reynolds equation for micropolar fluids is solved by FEM, to find the fluid film pressure.Then, in turn, bearing performance characteristics, namely, load-carrying capacity, attitude angle, frictional force, friction coefficient, and side leakage flow are calculated. Results show that, in general, micropolarity of the lubricant improves the performance of the bearings; however, non-circularity parameter of the lobe of the bearings, preload, has a favourable effect on certain performance characteristics of the bearings, such as the attitude angle which decreases as non-circularity of the bearing increases. The results further show that the rate of influence of preload factor on the performance characteristics of different lobed bearings is not the same.
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