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There is the direct interaction between the crankshaft and the crankshaft bearing in an internal combustion engine. Current lubrication analysis of the crankshaft bearing was generally limited in the tribology discipline, only the factors relating to the bearing were considered, and the journal axis was generally supposed to be parallel to the centerline of bearing. In reality, the crankshaft deformation under load will result in the journal misalignment in the bearing. Although the journal misalignment was considered in a few of the lubrication analyses of crankshaft bearings, the causes of journal misalignment were usually thought to be caused by the manufacture, the assembly errors and the deformation of cylinder block. In order to simplify the problem, the journal misalignment was generally assumed to have constant magnitude and direction in an operating cycle of engine.

The actual engine (especially vehicle engine) does not always operate under rated operating condition and its operating condition changes constantly. However, only the lubrication performance of crankshaft bearing at rated engine operating condition has been generally analyzed in current design and research of engine crankshaft bearing. In this paper, a four-stroke four-cylinder engine is taken as the studying object, the load and lubrication of crankshaft bearing under different operating conditions are analyzed systematically and comprehensively. The load of connecting-rod bearing is calculated by the dynamic calculation method, the loads of all crankshaft main bearings are calculated by the whole crankshaft solid-element finite element method, and the lubrication performance of crankshaft bearings are analyzed by the dynamic method.