Numerical Investigation of the Flow in a Hydrodynamic Thrust Bearing With Floating Disk

Author(s):  
Magnus Fischer ◽  
Andreas Mueller ◽  
Benjamin Rembold ◽  
Bruno Ammann

In this paper we present a novel method for the numerical simulation of flow in a hydrodynamic thrust bearing with floating disk. Floating disks are commonly employed in turbochargers and are situated between the thrust collar, which is rotating at turbocharger speed, and the static casing. A floating disk reduces wear, improves the skew compensating capacity of the bearing, and is freely movable in the axial direction. The simulation model presented combines a commercial flow solver (ANSYS CFX) with a control unit. Based on physical principles and a predefined axial thrust, the control unit automatically sets the rotational speed of the floating disk, the mass flow of the oil supply, and the oil film thickness between the rotating disk and the casing wall and collar, respectively. The only additional inputs required are the temperature and the pressure of the oil at the oil feed and the turbocharger speed. The width of the computational grid of the thin lubricating oil film in the gaps is adjusted using a mesh-morphing approach. The temperature-dependent variation in viscosity is included in the model. The calculated solution of the flow field in the domain, the oil film thickness, and the resulting rotational velocity of the floating disk are validated against experimental data and demonstrate favorable agreement. The influence of uncertainties in the measurements and the behavior of the systems are thoroughly investigated in parametric studies that reveal the key influencing factors. These are the temperature-dependent viscosity of the oil, the axial thrust, and turbulence effects in the supply grooves and ducts of the floating disk. Using the model presented here, it is now possible to predict design variants for this type of bearing.

Author(s):  
Magnus Fischer ◽  
Andreas Mueller ◽  
Benjamin Rembold ◽  
Bruno Ammann

In this paper we present a novel method for the numerical simulation of flow in a hydrodynamic thrust bearing with floating disk. Floating disks are commonly employed in turbochargers and are situated between the thrust collar, which is rotating at turbocharger speed, and the static casing. A floating disk reduces wear, improves the skew compensating capacity of the bearing and is freely movable in the axial direction. The simulation model presented combines a commercial flow solver (ANSYS CFX) with a control unit. Based on physical principles and a predefined axial thrust, the control unit automatically sets the rotational speed of the floating disk, the mass flow of the oil supply and the oil film thickness between the rotating disk and the casing wall and collar respectively. The only additional inputs required are the temperature and the pressure of the oil at the oil feed and the turbocharger speed. The width of the computational grid of the thin lubricating oil film in the gaps is adjusted using a mesh-morphing approach. The temperature-dependent variation in viscosity is included in the model. The calculated solution of the flow field in the domain, the oil film thickness and the resulting rotational velocity of the floating disk are validated against experimental data and demonstrate favorable agreement. The influence of uncertainties in the measurements and the behavior of the systems are thoroughly investigated in parametric studies which reveal the key influencing factors. These are the temperature-dependent viscosity of the oil, the axial thrust and turbulence effects in the supply grooves and ducts of the floating disk. Using the model presented here, it is now possible to predict design variants for this type of bearing.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fuqin Yang ◽  
Dexing Hu ◽  
Qianhao Xiao ◽  
Shun Zhao

Purpose This paper aims to study line-contact elastohydrodynamic grease lubrication properties of surface-textured rollers as well as the effect of different crown widths (dw) on oil film thickness under textured conditions. Design/methodology/approach The laser processing method was used to make the micro-texture on the surface of GCr15 steel rollers; lithium grease was used as the lubricant, and line-contact elastohydrodynamic grease lubrication experiments under pure sliding conditions were performed on light interference elastohydrodynamic-lubricated experimental table. Findings The results show that the line-contact elastohydrodynamic grease lubrication is closely related to the textured crown width of steel rollers. At low speeds and light loads, texturing has an inevitable inhibitory effect on the formation of the lubricating oil film, and the smaller the width of the crown area, the more obvious the inhibitory effect, which is not conducive to the improvement of the lubrication condition. At high speeds and high loads, the textured roller with dw = 1 mm has the largest oil film thickness and shows better lubrication performance. Originality/value At present, there is little research on the surface texture of line-contact friction pairs. This work explores the effect of different textured crown width on the lubricating properties of line-contact elastohydrodynamic grease lubrication by experiment. It provides a new theoretical basis for the subsequent practical application of surface texture technology.


2019 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 146-153
Author(s):  
Yanqin Zhang ◽  
Zhiquan Zhang ◽  
Xiangbin Kong ◽  
Rui Li ◽  
Hui Jiang

Purpose The purpose of this paper was to obtain the lubrication characteristics of heavy hydrostatic bearing in heavy equipment manufacturing industry through theoretical analysis and numerical simulation. Design/methodology/approach This paper discusses the influence of oil film thickness variation on velocity field, outlet-L and outlet-R flow velocity under the hydrostatic bearing running in no-load 0 N, load 400 KN, full load 1,500 KN and rotating speeds of 10 r/min, 20 r/min, 30 r/min, 40 r/min, 50 r/min and 60 r/min, by using dynamic mesh technology and FLUENT software. Findings When the working table rotates clockwise, in the change process of oil film thickness, the fluid flow pattern of the lubricating oil at the edge of the sealing oil is the rule of laminar flow, and the oil cavity has a vortex. The outlet-R flow velocity becomes higher and higher by increasing the bearing load and working table speed, and the flow velocity increases with the decrease in oil film thickness; the outlet-L flow velocity increases with the decrease in oil film thickness under low rotating speed (less than 10 r/min) condition and decreases with the decrease of oil film thickness under high rotating speed (more than 60 r/min) condition. Originality/value The influence of the oil film thickness on the flow state distribution of the oil film was analyzed under different working conditions, and the influence rules of oil film thickness on the flow velocity of hydrostatic bearing oil pad was obtained by using dynamic mesh technology.


1974 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 386-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Bahadoran ◽  
R. Gohar

The effects of speed, load and roller geometry on the oil film thickness and shape in a complete roller bearing are demonstrated experimentally by means of optical interferometry. At quite moderate roller speeds, increase of film thickness becomes inhibited. This effect is attributed to a truncated inlet meniscus, a similar condition having been observed elsewhere with a ball-and-plate machine and with a model of a tapered-roller thrust bearing.


Author(s):  
FA Najar ◽  
GA Harmain

This paper describes the design and development of a test rig, for the experimental assessment of performance characteristics of thrust bearing used in hydro power plants. This test rig has features to study experimentally the conventional pad-based thrust bearing and the newly designed water cooling enabled pad. In this paper, a cooling circuit designated as Circuit-I has been installed and then testing is performed. The shaft speed and axial load has been set at 1400 r/min and 5.0 kN. The lubricating oil used SAE-30 and inlet temperature of oil was maintained at 40℃. The main focus of the present work is to compute the influence on the temperature distribution in the oil film on the top surface of the pad with the embodiment of cooling circuit arrangement. From the experimental results, the overall reduction in the oil film temperature or on the top surface of the pad has been found to be 14% when the conventional thrust bearing set up is replaced by water cooling enabled pad of this kind.


Processes ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 1474
Author(s):  
Heyun Bao ◽  
Tongjing Xu ◽  
Guanghu Jin ◽  
Wei Huang

The working principle and motion process of an aviation wet clutch are analyzed. The initial velocity before the friction pair engaged is solved. The transient Reynolds equation is modified, and an oil film bearing capacity model and a micro-convex bearing capacity model are derived. The film thickness equation between N friction pairs and a pressure-plate is derived. A dynamic engaged model of springs, pistons, friction pairs, and pressure plates are established. The torque balance equation is established of two pairs of friction pairs. The friction torque, rate of change in the oil film, and law of relative change in speed are obtained. The results demonstrate that the spring preload and the viscosity of the lubricating oil have a significant influence on the engagement characteristics. Increasing the quality of the friction plate will reduce the time of engagement, whereas the quality of the friction plate has slight effect on the friction torque characteristics and oil film thickness. The initial speed generated by the collision process will reduce the output speed, sharply increase the torque peak at the lock, and increase the shift shock.


2010 ◽  
Vol 37-38 ◽  
pp. 743-747
Author(s):  
Xiao Dong Yu ◽  
Xiu Li Meng ◽  
Hui Jiang ◽  
Xiao Zhong Lou ◽  
Bo Wu ◽  
...  

Hydrostatic thrust bearing lubrication is significantly affected by the oil flow state of gap oil film, but it can not be measured by experiment and analysis. For this problem, the oil flow state of gap oil film in sector cavity multi-pad hydrostatic thrust bearing during rotation was simulated by using computational fluid dynamics, lubricating theory, and Finite Element Method. Laminar model and κ-ε turbulence model were adopted to model incompressible steady equations, and the equations were discreted by using Finite Volume Method and Second-order Finite Difference. By comparing the calculated results of numerical simulation and semi-empirical theoretical equation, the numerical simulation is proved feasible in oil film state analysis parameter prediction, which can overcome the deficiency of single model and get good effect. Streamlines and velocity vectors show that the lubricating oil flow in the resistive oil edges and oil cavities are laminar flow under the conditions of speed and flow in less than a certain value, while the flow and speed are more than a certain value, the lubricating oil flow in the resistive oil edges is also laminar flow, but the lubricating oil flow in the oil cavities is turbulent flow, then determines critical flow and critical speed. The critical flow and critical speed were determined, it provides a theoretical basis of the temperature field and thermal field deformation calculation.


2000 ◽  
Vol 123 (3) ◽  
pp. 608-615 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergei B. Glavatskikh

The paper reports results of the experimental investigation into the steady state performance characteristics of a tilting pad thrust bearing typical of design in general use. Simultaneous measurements are taken of the pad and collar temperatures, the pressure distributions, oil film thickness, and power loss as a function of shaft speed, bearing load, and supplied oil temperature. The effect of operating conditions on bearing performance is discussed. A small radial temperature variation is observed in the collar. A reduction in minimum oil film thickness with load is approximately proportional to p−0.6, where p is an average bearing pressure. It has also been found that the oil film pressure profiles change not only due to the average bearing load but also with an increase in shaft speed and temperature of the supplied oil.


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