This paper deals with the generation of pressure profile and attitude angle for different mesh sizes in hydrodynamic journal bearing. Finite difference method is adopted to solve the two-dimensional Reynolds equations. The value of peak pressure decreases as the value of mesh size increases. Attitude angle obtained is compared with Raimondi and Boyd (1958) and percentage deviation in it is plotted. It is observed that for more fine mesh size, the obtained results are more accurate. But the processing time required for calculation increases with the increase in mesh size. It was found that the maximum deviation in attitude angle is 4.79% for mesh size of 121 41 and L/D ratio of 2.

Large industrial applications find use of hydrodynamic journal bearing. The hydrodynamic journal bearing is based on the hydrodynamic action of lubricant (Shigley and Mischke, 2003). In hydrodynamic lubrication, the load supporting high pressure fluid film is created due to the shape and relative motion between the two surfaces. The moving surface pulls the lubricant into a wedge-shaped zone at a velocity sufficiently high to create the high pressure film necessary to separate the two surfaces against the load. The basic working principle of hydrodynamic journal bearing can be understood by Figure 1. This figure shows that in dynamic condition, the shaft rotates eccentrically with the bush. The line passing through the centers, i.e., shaft center and bush center is called the line of centers. The angle between the line of centers and the load line is called attitude angle (Cameron, 1981).

The computer-aided design has become more popular due to its fast, accurate and user-friendly nature. Yuxiang (2008) published a paper on computer-aided industrial design and its need. The current paper uses Matlab programming for solution and iteration purpose of equations.

Mechanical Engineering Journal, Pressure profile, Attitude angle, Mesh size, Hydrodynamic journal bearing, Finite difference method, Reynolds equation.