Multi-objective optimization of liquid metal bearing based on NSGA-II

Due to their exceptional static and dynamic properties along with high-temperature resistance, liquid metal bearings are extensively employed in challenging environments. This paper carried out a multi-objective optimization work for spiral groove journal liquid metal bearings (JLMB) by using a NSGA-II. The clearance of bearing C, spiral angle a, groove depth h_g, groove ridge ratio β, groove number N, and groove spacing P were chosen as design variables to maximize the load-carrying capacity and the effective stiffness of liquid metal bearing. During optimization process, the Latin hypercube sampling was adopted to generate 41 sample points, and the Kriging surrogate model was used to establish the correlations between design variables and objective functions. The Pareto front with optimal structures was obtained after optimization. Subsequently, optimal parameters were determined from the Pareto front by using the TOPSIS decision method. Finally, a comparative analysis of bearing performance was conducted between the journal liquid metal bearings with optimal parameters and the original parameters. The results indicated that the optimal JLMB parameters are given as follows: C = 10 μm, a = 26°, h_g= 5.2 μm, β = 0.7, P = 11.1 mm, N = 10. The static and dynamic performance of optimized JLMB has been significantly improved. Specifically, the load carrying capacity increased to 2781.2N, making a 1313% enhancement over the JLMB with original parameters. While the effective stiffness of the optimized JLMB surged to 1.86 × 10⁸ N/m, a more than 20-fold increase.