Effect of texture geometry on the performance of noncircular aerodynamic journal bearings

Today, considerable uses of aerodynamic journal bearings have attracted the attention of many researchers in the field of tribology. Therefore, the theoretical and experimental analysis of their performance has been the subject of many researches. Growing application of the gas journal bearings is due to their capability in various engineering fields such as instrumentation and high-speed machines like spindles, small-scale turbomachines, and precision gyroscopes, dental milling machines, and many other rotor-bearing systems. Upgrading the performance of gas bearings by changing their geometry or using new compressible lubricants has always been one of the suggestions proposed by the tribology researchers. Recently, the development of new technologies such as laser milling and lithography increased the possibility of creating textured surfaces as a way to improve the performance of journal bearings. So, in this study, the effects of texture geometry on the steady-state performance of two-lobe noncircular aerodynamic journal bearings are presented. For this purpose, the governing Reynolds equation of hydrodynamic gas lubrication is analyzed by finite element method according to the changes of the lubricant film thickness in presence of the cubical, cylindrical, and ellipsoidal surface textures. Results show that the creation of textures on the lower lobe compared to the upper lobe or the whole surface is more effective on the performance of two-lobe aerodynamic bearings. Also, increasing both the dimple depth and the amount of bearings noncircularity, especially at shallow texture depth, cause more significant changes in the lubricant film pressure distribution and the bearing performance parameters such as load-carrying capacity, attitude angle, and frictional power loss. Further, it is obvious that the creation of cubical, cylindrical and ellipsoidal textures especially at shallow depth with an increase in the noncircularity of bearings’ geometry have a higher impact on the steady-state performance of the studied rotor-bearing system, respectively.

Dynamic Analysis of a Slant-Cracked Functionally Graded Rotor-Bearing System

The dynamic response of a power law based functionally graded (FG) rotor-bearing system with a slant crack has been analysed in the present work. The vibration response of an FG rotor-bearing system with a slant crack has been simulated using the Houbolt time marching scheme for different crack depths. The time-domain vibration responses are converted into the frequency domain using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) to identify the crack features in order to detect and monitor the cracks. The sub-harmonic frequency components of the steady-state frequency spectrum were centred on the FG rotor’s operating speed, separated by the interval frequency corresponding to the torsional frequency. The sub-harmonic frequency components of the transient state frequency domain were found to be centred on the critical speed of the FG rotor system. The subharmonic frequency components of the dynamic response confirm the existence of a crack in the FG rotor system, which could be used to detect the crack in an FG rotor system.

Study On the Bistable Vibration Behaviour of a Rod Fastened Rotor-Bearing System

Based on the Lagrange equation, the motion equation of a rod fastened rotor-bearing system considering the damping of the contact interface is established. The numerical method is employed for numerical analysis. The bifurcation diagram, time series, frequency waveform, phase spectrum and Poincare map are used to illustrate the nonlinear dynamic behaviour. The transient responses during acceleration and deceleration are calculated to reveal the dynamic behaviour of the system. The numerical results hold that since the oil film is nonlinear, the system presents obvious bistable behaviour and a jumping phenomenon. In addition, a test bench of the rod fastened rotor-bearing system is built. The bistable behaviour and jumping phenomenon are experimentally proven, and the effect of the eccentric distance of the rotor on the bistable behaviour is experimentally explored. The results of this paper can be used for the basic design and fault diagnosis of rod fastened rotors.

Bifurcation analysis of rotor/bearing system using third-order journal bearing stiffness and damping coefficients

Hydrodynamic journal bearings are used in many applications which involve high speeds and loads. However, they are susceptible to oil whirl instability, which may cause bearing failure. In this work, a flexible Jeffcott rotor supported by two identical journal bearings is used to investigate the stability and bifurcations of rotor bearing system. Since a closed form for the finite bearing forces is not exist, nonlinear bearing stiffness and damping coefficients are used to represent the bearing forces. The bearing forces are approximated to the third order using Taylor expansion, and infinitesimal perturbation method is used to evaluate the nonlinear bearing coefficients. The mesh sensitivity on the bearing coefficients is investigated. Then, the equations of motion based on bearing coefficients are used to investigate the dynamics and stability of the rotor-bearing system. The effect of rotor stiffness ratio and applied load on the Hopf bifurcation stability and limit cycle continuation of the system are investigated. The results of this work show that evaluating the bearing forces using Taylor’s expansion up to the third-order bearing coefficients can be used to profoundly investigate the rich dynamics of rotor-bearing systems.

Study on dynamic characteristics of rotor-bearing system under pitching condition

In many cases, ships will encounter special conditions, such as bad sea conditions, and the effect of various disturbance factors, such as wind and waves, will cause low-frequency longitudinal and transverse rocking motion of ships. This would affect the rotor-bearing system of the power plant, which is directly attached to the hull of the ship, and would roll along with the hull in the same longitudinal and transverse motion. This will have a significant impact on the stability of the rotor bearing system of the ship power plant and the safety of the ship. In this paper, a rotor-bearing test rig is mounted on a multi-degree-of-freedom swing test rig simulating sea conditions. The multi-degree-of-freedom rocking test bed simulates sea conditions. The rotor-bearing test bed is equipped with an eddy current sensor and an acceleration sensor to obtain experimental data. The programmable loader is used to control the rotor speed so as to carry out the experiment process at different speeds. Finally, the dynamic characteristics of rotor-bearing system under swinging condition are obtained.