For the limitations as using the well-known film thickness equation in shape optimization

a new approach for shape optimization of hydrodynamic journal bearing following the general film thickness equation was proposed. The uniform mathematical model of optimization was derived

which took a maximum load capacity as an objective

and the coefficients of the general film thickness equation as design variables with consideration of a minimum film thickness. The Fourier series was adopted to represent the general film thickness equation

and the principal efforts were associated with determination of the Fourier coefficients to achieve the reasonably optimal performance. The optimal results produced with genetic algorithms verify that this new method for optimizing the hydrodynamic journal bearing shapes outperforms the methods in previous publications

and the optimized shapes proposed here breaks the limitation in existing bearing profiles.