Nonuniform Magnetic Field Effects in MHD Slider Bearing

A theoretical analysis is made of a slider bearing using an electrically conducting lubricant in the presence of a nonuniform magnetic field applied perpendicularly to the bearing surfaces. In the differential equations inertia terms are retained and the solution is obtained numerically for low Hartmann numbers. The results indicate that the contribution of inertia terms decreases with the increase of Hartmann number and that the nonuniform magnetic field gives higher load capacity than the comparable uniform magnetic field.