Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Korean Nuclear Society (한국원자력학회)
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Study on transient performance of tilting-pad thrust bearings in nuclear pump considering fluid-structure interaction

  • Qiang Li (College of New Energy, China University of Petroleum (East China)) ;
  • Bin Li (College of New Energy, China University of Petroleum (East China)) ;
  • Xiuwei Li (College of New Energy, China University of Petroleum (East China)) ;
  • Quntao Xie (College of New Energy, China University of Petroleum (East China)) ;
  • Qinglei Liu (College of New Energy, China University of Petroleum (East China)) ;
  • Weiwei Xu (College of New Energy, China University of Petroleum (East China))
  • Received : 2022.08.04
  • Accepted : 2023.03.05
  • Published : 2023.06.25
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Abstract

To study the lubrication performance of tilting-pad thrust bearing (TPTBs) during start-up in nuclear pump, a hydrodynamic lubrication model of TPTBs was established based on the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method and the fluid-structure interaction (FSI) technique. Further, a mesh motion algorithm for the transient calculation of thrust bearings was developed based on the user defined function (UDF). The result demonstrated that minimum film thickness increases first and then decreases with the rotational speed under start-up condition. The influence of pad tilt on minimum film thickness is greater than that of collar movement at low speed, and the establishment of dynamic pressure mainly depends on pad tilt and minimum film thickness increases. As the increase of rotational speed, the influence of pad tilt was abated, where the influence of the moving of the collar dominated gradually, and minimum film thickness decreases. For TPTBs, the circumferential angle of the pad is always greater than the radial angle. When the rotational speed is constant, the change rate of radial angle is greater than that of circumferential angle with the increase of loading forces. This study can provide reference for improving bearing wear resistance.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NO. 52176050, NO. 51506225), the General Program of Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (NO. ZR2020ME174).

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