Texture optimization and verification for the thrust bearing used in rotary compressors based on a transient tribo-dynamics model

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Bugao Lyu ◽  
Lilong Jing ◽  
Xianghui Meng ◽  
Ruichao Liu

Abstract Rotary compressors are designed more and more compact and the compressor cylinder's ambient pressure is designed very high to facilitate oil separation and improve efficiency. However, these designs cause the working condition of the thrust bearing becoming harsher, and severe wear may occur. The present study is aimed at mitigating its wear condition through surface texturing. Based on a transient tribo-dynamics model considering the coupling effect of the journal and thrust bearings, a texture optimization study for the thrust bearing is conducted, in which three different stochastic optimization algorithms are utilized. The results show that thrust bearings with optimized textures have significantly reduced contact forces and wear under a high working frequency due to an extra hydrodynamic support around the texture dimples. The optimized texture designs are fabricated on the thrust bearing surfaces by a high-accurate picosecond laser machine and their performance is assessed through experiments using a compressor performance test platform. The experiment results confirm that the textured thrust bearing has a lower wear depth. Moreover, the coefficient of performance (COP) of the testing compressor with textured thrust bearing is increased while its input power decreases, which implies a reduced friction force and a higher energy efficiency.

Author(s):  
Jason Wilkes ◽  
Ryan Cater ◽  
Erik Swanson ◽  
Kevin Passmore ◽  
Jerry Brady

Abstract This paper will show the influence of ambient pressure on the thrust capacity of bump-foil and spiral-groove gas thrust bearings. The bearings were operating in nitrogen at various pressures up to 69 bar, and were tested to failure. Failure was detected at various pressures by incrementally increasing the thrust load applied to the thrust bearing until the bearing was no longer thermally stable, or until contact was observed by a temperature spike measured by thermocouples within the bearing. These tests were performed on a novel thrust bearing test rig that was developed to allow thrust testing at pressures up to 207 bar cavity pressure at 260°C while rotating at speeds up to 120,000 rpm. The test rig floats on hydrostatic air bearings to allow for the direct measurement of applied thrust load through linkages that connect the stationary thrust loader to the rotor housing. Test results on a 65 mm (2.56 in) bump-foil thrust bearing at 100 krpm show a marked increase in load capacity with gas density, which has not previously been shown experimentally. Results also show that the load capacity of a similarly sized spiral-groove thrust bearing are relatively insensitive to pressure, and supported an order-of-magnitude less load than that observed for the bump-foil thrust bearing. These results are compared with analytical predictions, which agree reasonably with the experimental results. Predicted power loss is also presented for the bump-foil bearing; however, measured power loss was substantially higher.


1969 ◽  
Vol 91 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. C. Hsing ◽  
S. B. Malanoski

The objective of this paper is to study the effect of molecular mean free path on the steady-state performance characteristics of a spiral-grooved thrust bearing operating in extremely thin film and/or low ambient pressure environments. Numerical results for the most popular three versions of the spiral-grooved designs are presented. These results reveal that the effect of slip boundary conditions could contribute substantial reduction, in performance. Helium is the worst gas lubricant in this sense because of its high Knudsen number. The slip-flow corrected results check well with recently published experimental data [11].


1990 ◽  
Vol 112 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cz. M. Rodkiewicz ◽  
K. W. Kim ◽  
J. S. Kennedy

An operating tilting-pad thrust bearing generates a fore-region which is responsible for maintaining, at the bearing entrance, a pressure which is higher than the ambient pressure. This entrance pressure, in the presented analysis, is obtained by applying to the fore-region the momentum integral theorem. The solution of the lubricating film region is then obtained by using this modified inlet pressure. This solution yields the pressure distribution, the load carrying capacity, the film ratio and the frictional force for several values of the modified Reynolds number and various pivot positions. The analysis shows that there is a significant influence of the fore-region pressure on the bearing performance and that to properly design efficient tilting-pad bearing this effect should be taken into consideration.


Lubricants ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 44
Author(s):  
Christian Ziese ◽  
Cornelius Irmscher ◽  
Steffen Nitzschke ◽  
Christian Daniel ◽  
Elmar Woschke

The vibration behaviour of turbocharger rotors is influenced by the acting loads as well as by the type and arrangement of the hydrodynamic bearings and their operating condition. Due to the highly non-linear bearing behaviour, lubricant film-induced excitations can occur, which lead to sub-synchronous rotor vibrations. A significant impact on the oscillation behaviour is attributed to the pressure distribution in the hydrodynamic bearings, which is influenced by the thermo-hydrodynamic conditions and the occurrence of outgassing processes. This contribution investigates the vibration behaviour of a floating ring supported turbocharger rotor. For detailed modelling of the bearings, the Reynolds equation with mass-conserving cavitation, the three-dimensional energy equation and the heat conduction equation are solved. To examine the impact of outgassing processes and thrust bearing on the occurrence of sub-synchronous rotor vibrations separately, a variation of the bearing model is made. This includes run-up simulations considering or neglecting thrust bearings and two-phase flow in the lubrication gap. It is shown that, for a reliable prediction of sub-synchronous vibrations, both the modelling of outgassing processes in hydrodynamic bearings and the consideration of thrust bearing are necessary.


1977 ◽  
Vol 99 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Etsion ◽  
D. P. Fleming

A flat sector shaped pad geometry for gas lubricated thrust bearings is analyzed considering both pitch and roll angles of the pad and the true film thickness distribution. Maximum load capacity is achieved when the pad is tilted so as to create a uniform minimum film thickness along the pad trailing edge. Performance characteristics for various geometries and operating conditions of gas thrust bearings are presented in the form of design curves. A comparison is made with the rectangular slider approximation. It is found that this approximation is unsafe for practical design, since it always overestimates load capacity.


1950 ◽  
Vol 163 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. E. Salama

This work was initiated to investigate the effect of surface macro-roughness on the performance of the parallel-faces thrust bearing and, at the same time, to find a rational explanation of its behaviour. The problem is treated both theoretically and experimentally and the main result arrived at indicates that macro-roughness is a prime factor in the behaviour of the bearing, as it provides passages which both feed the surfaces with the lubricant and allow the formation of hydrodynamic films so that the performance corresponds closer to that for film lubrication. Further work on micro-roughness is proceeding.


2000 ◽  
Vol 123 (3) ◽  
pp. 501-508 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Yoshimoto ◽  
K. Kohno

Recently, graphite porous material has been used successfully in an aerostatic bearing. In actual bearing design, it is often necessary to reduce the thickness of porous material to make the bearing smaller. However, a reduction in thickness results in a reduction in the strength of the porous material. In particular, when the diameter of porous material is large, it is difficult to supply the air through the full pad area of porous material because it deforms. Therefore, in this paper, two types of air supply method (the annular groove supply and the hole supply) in a circular aerostatic porous thrust bearing are proposed to avoid the deflection of the bearing surface. The static and dynamic characteristics of aerostatic porous bearing with these air supply methods are investigated theoretically and experimentally. In addition, the effects of a surface restricted layer on the characteristics are clarified.


2017 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdelrasoul M. Gad

Purpose Compliant foil thrust bearings are promising bearings for high-speed oil-free turbomachinery. However, most previous experimental and numerical approaches to investigate the performance of these bearings have ignored the effect of bearing runner misalignment. Therefore, this paper aims to evaluate the effects of static and dynamic angular misalignments of the bearing runner on the performance of a gas-lubricated foil thrust bearing. Design/methodology/approach The bearing runner is allowed a maximum angular misalignment that produces a minimum gas film thickness as low as 20 per cent of the nominal clearance. Then, the variations of bearing load carrying capacity, viscous power loss and stiffness and damping coefficients of the gas film with runner misalignment are thoroughly analyzed. The flow in the gas film is modeled with compressible Reynolds equation along with the Couette approximation technique, and the deformation of the compliant bearing is calculated with a robust analytical model. Small perturbations method is used to calculate the force and moment dynamic coefficients of the gas film. Findings The results show that misaligned foil thrust bearings are capable of developing a restoring moment sufficient enough to withstand the imposed misalignments. Furthermore, the enhanced hydrodynamic effect ensures a stable operation of the misaligned bearing, and the results highlighted the role of the compliant bearing structure to maintain foil bearing prominent features even at misaligned conditions. Originality/value The value of this study is the evaluation of the effects of runner angular misalignments on the static and dynamic characteristics of Generation II bump-type foil thrust bearing.


Author(s):  
György Szász ◽  
George T. Flowers

Abstract A study of bladed-disk vibration control using magnetic bearings is presented. A key issue is a method for achieving practical controllability for such a system. For a tuned or symmetrically mistuned bladed disk assembly, several vibration modes are coupled only to the axial dynamics. Magnetic thrust bearings generally lack sufficient bandwidth to control even moderately high frequency vibration. A simplified model is developed and used to identify controllable vibration modes. A control strategy based upon deliberately mistuning in a non-symmetric manner is developed. The method presented does not require a thrust bearing for complete controllability of a bladed disk assembly via hub based actuators. However, since the linearized model for such a system has time periodic coefficients, an advanced time period controller is required. Controlling time periodic systems is a significant engineering challenge. One innovative approach that seems to be especially promising involves application of the Lyapunov Floquet (LF) transformation to eliminate time periodic terms from the system state matrices. Traditional control design techniques are then applied and the resulting gains transformed back to the original domain. Some simulation results are presented and discussed to illustrate the method.


1959 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-340
Author(s):  
C. F. Kettleborough

Abstract The problem of the stepped-thrust bearing is considered but, whereas normally volumetric continuity is assumed, the equations are solved assuming mass continuity; i.e., the variation of density is also considered as well as the effect of the stepped discontinuity on the load-carrying capacity and the coefficient of friction. Computed theoretical curves illustrate the importance of the density on the operation of this bearing and, in part, explain results already published.


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