Study on the temperature and strain fields in gas foil bearings – measurement method and numerical simulations

Gas foil bearings belong to the group of slide bearings and are used in devices in which operation at high rotational speeds of the shafts are of key importance, e.g., in gas turbines. The air film developed on the surface of the bearing’s top foil allows this structural component to be separated from the shaft. This ensures a non-contact operation of the bearing. In the case of the mentioned type of bearings, their resultant operational properties are influenced by both thermal and mechanical phenomena. The current work presents a model of a gas foil bearing developed making use of the Finite Element Method. The model takes into account thermomechanical couplings which are necessary for the correct simulation of the operation of physical components of the modeled system. The paper reports the results of numerical analyzes conducted for the elaborated model as well as the relevant conclusions concerning thermomechanical couplings present in gas foil bearings. The method for the experimental identification of the temperature and strain fields in the bearing’s top foil proposed to validate the numerical model is also presented.

Investigation on the Use of a Spacetime Formalism for Modeling and Numerical Simulations of Heat Conduction Phenomena

The question of frame-indifference of the thermomechanical models has to be addressed to deal correctly with the behavior of matter undergoing finite transformations. In this work, we propose to test a spacetime formalism to investigate the benefits of the covariance principle for application to covariant modeling and numerical simulations for finite transformations. Several models especially for heat conduction are proposed following this framework and next compared to existing models. This article also investigates numerical simulations using the heat equation with two different thermal dissipative models for heat conduction, without thermomechanical couplings. The numerical comparison between the spacetime thermal models derived in this work and the corresponding Newtonian thermal models, which adds the time as a discretized variable, is also performed through an example to investigate their advantages and drawbacks.

Assessment of Thermomechanical Couplings in Tribological Surface Transformations: Application to the Irreversible Near-Surface Solid-Solid Phase Transformations

Tribological Surface Transformations (TSTs), which are irreversible near-surface solid-solid phase transformations, tend to occur on railroads frequented by heavy freight trains. The present study is proposed to assess the contribution of thermomechanical coupling processes to the emergence and development of TSTs near the surface of the rails.