Numerical and experimental study on dynamic characteristics of tilting-pad journal bearings considering pivot stiffness in a vertical rotor system

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fan Zhang ◽  
Peng Yin ◽  
Yuyang Liu ◽  
Jianmei Wang

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study the influence of pivot stiffness on the dynamic characteristics of tilting-pad journal bearings (TPJBs) and the stability of the bearing-rotor system. Design/methodology/approach A theoretical numerical model is established, and the influences of pivot stiffness on TPJBs and a bearing-rotor system are analyzed. Then, two kinds of pivot structures with different stiffness are designed and the vibration characteristics are tested on the vertical rotor bearing test bench. Findings The pivot stiffness has an obvious effect on the dynamic characteristics of the TPJBs and the stability of the bearing-rotor system. As a result of appropriate pivot stiffness, the critical speed and the vibration amplification factor can be reduced, the logarithmic decay rate and the stability of the rotor system can be effectively increased. While the journal whirl orbit is smoother and the rubbing is obviously reduced when the bearings have flexible pivots. Originality/value The influence of pivot stiffness on TPJBs and a vertical rotor-bearing system is studied by theoretical and experimental methods.

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Gudeta Berhanu Benti ◽  
David Jose Rondon ◽  
Rolf Gustavsson ◽  
Jan-Olov Aidanpää

Abstract In this paper, the dynamics of tilting pad journal bearings with four and eight pads are studied and compared experimentally and numerically. The experiments are performed on a rigid vertical rotor supported by two identical bearings. Two sets of experiments are carried out under similar test setup. One set is performed on a rigid rotor with two four-pad bearings, while the other is on a rigid rotor with two eight-pad bearings. The dynamic properties of the two bearing types are compared with each other by studying the unbalance response of the system at different rotor speeds. Numerically, the test rig is modeled as a rigid rotor and the bearing coefficients are calculated based on Navier-Stokes equation. A nonlinear bearing model is developed and used in the steady state response simulation. The measured and simulated displacement and force orbits show similar patterns for both bearing types. Compared to the measurement, the simulated mean value and range (peak-to-peak amplitude) of the bearing force deviate with a maximum of 16 % and 38 %, respectively. It is concluded that, unlike the eight-pad TPJB, the four-pad TPJB excite the system at the third and fifth-order frequencies, which are due to the number of pads, and the amplitudes of these frequencies increase with the rotor speed.


Author(s):  
Pranabesh De Choudhury

Abstract The rotordynamic analysis of a high speed multistage centrifugal compressor supported on radial magnetic bearings, which has been running successfully in the field for 9000 hours to date, is presented. Iterations required to achieve an acceptable rotor configuration using magnetic bearings are discussed. The results of the rotor-bearing system on standard fluid film five shoe tilting pad journal bearings are compared to the dynamics of the rotor on magnetic bearings. Correlation of the observed peak responses with those predicted on magnetic bearings is presented. The actual orbit plots and frequency plots during the coastdown of the rotor-bearing system on auxiliary ball bearings are discussed.


1997 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 199-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Pagano ◽  
Ernesto Rocca ◽  
Michele Russo ◽  
Riccardo Russo

The stability of a rigid rotor supported on radial tilting pad journal bearings is analysed. This study has been tackled both for small unbalance values by linearising the equations of motion, and also in the case where, because of the high unbalance value, the rotor axis describes orbits with an amplitude such that the system's non-linearity cannot be ignored. In both cases the system's stable operation maps have been obtained and verified through numerical integration of the differential equations of motion.


2014 ◽  
Vol 74 ◽  
pp. 20-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory F. Simmons ◽  
Alejandro Cerda Varela ◽  
Ilmar Ferreira Santos ◽  
Sergei Glavatskih

Author(s):  
Tian Jiale ◽  
Yu Lie ◽  
Zhou Jian

The stable working condition of high speed, heavy loaded rotating machinery depends strongly on the stability provided by the journal bearing. Tilting pad journal bearings (TPJB) are widely used under such situation due to their inherent stability performance. However, because of the complexity of the TPJB structure, obtaining a reliable prediction of the journal bearing’s dynamic characteristics has always been a challenging task. In this paper, a theoretical analysis has been done to investigate the dynamic performance of a 4 pad TPJB with ball-in-socket pivot, emphasizing on the frequency dependency due to pivot flexibility. The analytical model containing the complete set of dynamic coefficients of the TPJB is built and the pivot stiffness is calculated and used to evaluate the equivalent dynamic coefficients of the bearing. In general, at lower perturbation frequency, the equivalent stiffness and damping increase with frequency. While for higher perturbation frequency, the dynamic coefficients are nearly independent of the frequency. Moreover, the results also show the limit value of the dynamic characteristics of the TPJB when the perturbation frequency is set to 0+ and ∞.


2013 ◽  
Vol 364 ◽  
pp. 71-75
Author(s):  
Ming Hu Yin ◽  
Guo Ding Chen ◽  
Guo Yuan Zhang

Most of the studies about tilting pad journal bearings are for load-on-pad or load-between-pad tilting pad journal bearings, and for the other loading forms, the performance are often estimated by the performance of the two limited conditions, that may reduce the reliablity of bearing design or lead to waste materials in design. To obtained the influence of the load directions on the static and dynamic characteristics of the tilting pad journal bearing, which is called eccentric load effect in this papers, the performance calculation of the tilting pad journal bearing in different load directions is operated with a self-designed program. The results show that the load directions have considerable effects both on the static and dynamic characteristics of the tilting pad journal bearing, for the operating condition that load direction changed rapidly, it need performance analysis of the bearing in its special loading forms to enhance the precision and efficiency of bearing design, espacially where the dynamic performance of the tilting pad journal bearing is demanding.


1992 ◽  
Vol 114 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. F. White ◽  
S. H. Chan

Tilting-pad journal bearings are being increasingly used to avoid bearing instability problems. This paper describes the theory and results from a design program which has been developed for tilting-pad journal bearing calculations. The present approach is based on the numerical solution of the Reynolds equation using a one-dimensional finite element technique which considers temperature and viscosity changes and can also take into account the effect of turbulent flow. Computed results of dynamic stiffness and damping coefficients show very good agreement with data from the literature. The effects of various factors which may influence the bearing dynamic characteristics are discussed. For bearings with small preloads and operating at high Sommerfeld numbers, the effective damping at subsynchronous frequencies is considerably lower than that predicted for synchronous vibration. The stiffness is also affected by frequency. This frequency effect is attenuated by increased bearing preloads and offsets. Such factors have important consequences on the stability of high speed turbomachinery supported by tilting-pad journal bearings.


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