• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제37권6호
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• pp.565-574
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• 2005

The CANFLEX Mk-V bundle is designed to improve upon the critical heat flux (CHF) characteristics of the CANFLEX Mk-IV bundle. The main difference between these two bundles is an increase in bearing pad height of about 0.3 mm in the CANFLEX Mk-IV bundle. This change in bearing pad height leads to an increase in gap flow at the bottom of the bundle, primarily eliminating the localized narrow-gap effect that limits the CHF of the CANFLEX Mk-IV bundle. The objective of this paper is to examine the effects of bearing pad height and pressure tube creep on the sheath-temperature distribution, dryout power, and dryout location, as observed ken full-scale bundle tests, between CANFLEX Mk-IV and Mk-V bundles In uncrept and crept channels. A comparison of surface-temperature differences between the top and bottom elements of the bundles showed that increasing the bearing pad height has led to a more homogeneous enthalpy distribution in subchannels of the bundle. Initial dryout locations of the CANFLEX Mk-V bundle were mainly observed at the mid-spacer plane of either the $10^{th}$ (about $80\%$) or $11^{th}$ ($20\%$) bundle in the 12-bundle string, as compared to the mid-spacer and downstream-button planes for the CANFLEX Mk-IV bundle. Dryout power and boiling-length-average (BLA) CHF values exhibit consistent trends and little scatter with varying flow conditions for both types of CANFLEX bundles in uncrept and crept channels. An increase in pressure tube creep has led to a reduction in dryout power (about $20\%$ far the $3.3\%$ crept channel and $27\%$ for the $5.1\%$ crept channel as compared to dryout powers for the uncrept channel). Increasing the bearing pad height of the CANFLEX bundle has led to an increase in the dryout power. Overall, the dryout power of the CANFLEX Mk-V bundle is 7 to $10\%$ higher than that of the CANFLEX Mk-IV bundle at the inlet temperature range of interest (i.e., between 243 and $290^{\circ}C$).

• 한국정밀공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국정밀공학회 2003년도 춘계학술대회 논문집
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• pp.355-358
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• 2003

This paper presents characteristics of vacuum preloaded porous air bearing. Pressure distribution of a porous pad and vacuum pocket are calculated. And load capacity and stiffness of the bearing are analyzed with various vacuum parameters, that is. clearance height. tube diameter, tube length. pumping speed of vacuum pump, vacuum pocket to porous pad area ratio. From the simulation results, optimum clearance for best performance can be selected adjusting these parameters, especially tube diameter which is the most dominant source.

• 한국원자력학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국원자력학회 2001년도 춘계학술발표회요약집
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• pp.197.1-197
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• 2001

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• 제33권6호
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• pp.309-314
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• 2017

This paper presents a theoretical investigation of the dynamic characteristics of externally pressurized air pad bearings with closed loop grooves. These grooves are made on the surface of bearings to reduce the number of supply holes so that manufacturing costs can be reduced. The semi-implicit method is applied to calculate the time varying pressure profile on the air bearing surface owing to the advantages of numerical stability and fast time tracing characteristics. The static pressure of the groove bearings is much higher than that without grooves, so the groove bearings can provide high load carrying capacity. The equation of motion considering vertical motion and tilting motion are also solved using the Runge-Kutta 4th order method. By combining the semi-implicit method and the Runge-Kutta method, fast calculations of the dynamic behavior of the air bearing can be achieved. The variations of bearing reaction force, air film reaction moment, height, and tilting angle are investigated for the step force input, which is 20% higher than the bearing reaction, when the nominal clearance is 6 mm. The effect of the groove width and the groove depth are investigated by calculating the dynamic behavior. The possibility of the air hammering with the depth of the groove is found and discussed.

• 한국소음진동공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국소음진동공학회 2001년도 춘계학술대회논문집
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• pp.924-929
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• 2001

The flying height of contact slider is determined by vertical and pitching motions of slider. This paper performed the computer simulation for flying height change of contact slider. It is changed by many parameters, contact stiffness, contact damping, air bearing stiffness ratio, a location of mass center, and so on. Computer simulation is performed for knowing for what change of these parameters influences in flying height of contact slider. Disk surface is modeled in harmonic wave with from 10㎑ to 600㎑. Tri-pad slider is modeled in that contact slider has 2-DOF motion (vertical motion, pitching motion). Tri-pad contact slider is analyzed by numerical analysis method in computer simulation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제37권5호
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• pp.479-490
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• 2005

The thermalhydraulic performance of a CANDU-6 reactor loaded with various CANFLEX fuel bundles is evaluated by the NUCIRC code, which is incorporated with recent models of pressure drop and critical heat flux (CHF) predictions based on high-pressure steam-water tests for the CANFLEX bundle as well as a 37-element bundle. The distributions of channel flow rate, channel exit quality, critical channel power (CCP), and critical power ratio (CPR) for the CANFLEX bundles (with natural or recycled uranium fuel) in the CANDU-6 reactor fuel channel are calculated by the code. The effects of axial and radial heat flux on CCP are evaluated by assuming that the recycled uranium fuel (CANFLEX-RU) has the same geometric data as the natural uranium fuel bundle (CANFLEX-NU), but a different power distribution due to different fuel composition and refueling scheme. In addition, the effects of pressure tube creep and bearing-pad height are examined by comparing various results of uncrept, and $3.3\%\;and\;5.1\%$ crept channels loaded with CANFLEX bundles with 1.4 mm or 1.7 mm high bearing-pads with those of the 37-element bundle. The distributions of the channel flow rate and CCP for the CANFLEX-NU or -RU bundle show a typical trend for a CANDU-6 reactor channel, and the CPRs are maintained above at least 1.444 (NU) or 1.455 (RU) in the uncrept channel. The enhanced CHF of the CANFLEX bundle (particularly with 1.7mm height bearing-pads) produces a higher thermal margin and considerably less sensitivity to CCP reduction due to the pressure tube creep than the 37-element bundle. The CCP enhancement due to the raised bearing-pads is estimated to be about $3\%\~5\%$ for the CANFLEX-NU and $2\%\~6\%$ for the CANFLEX-RU bundle, respectively.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• 제33권2호
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• pp.65-70
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• 2017

In vertical hydro/hydraulic power turbine-generator applications, traditionally, cylindrical turbine guide bearings (TGBs) are widely used to provide turbine runner shafts with smooth rotation guides and supports. All existing cylindrical TGBs with simple plain pads have drawbacks such as having no pressure generation and film stiffness at the no-load condition and in addition, at the low-load/low-eccentricity condition, having very low film stiffness values and lacking design credibility in the stiffness values themselves. In this paper, in order to fundamentally improve the low-load/low-eccentricity performance of conventional cylindrical TGBs and thus enhance their design-application availability and usefulness, we propose to introduce a rotation-directional leading-edge taper to each partitioned pad, i.e., a pad leading-edge taper. We perform a design analysis of lubrication performance on $4-Pad{\times}4-Row$ cylindrical TGBs to verify an engineering/technical usefulness of the proposed pad leading-edge taper. Analysis results show that by introducing the leading-edge taper to each pad of the cylindrical TGB one can expect a constant high average direct stiffness with a high degree of design credibility, regardless of load value, even at the low-load/low-eccentricity condition and also control the average direct stiffness value by exploring the taper height as a design parameter. Therefore, we conclude that the proposed pad leading-edge tapers are greatly effective in more accurately predicting and controlling rotordynamic characteristics of vertical hydro-power turbine-generator rotor-bearing systems to which cylindrical TGBs are applied.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• 제17권4호
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• pp.312-320
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• 2001

In magnetic hard disk drives, higher areal recording density requires reduction of head-disk spacing. To overcome the increase of stiction associated with reduction of head-disk spacing, a padder slider, which adds pads to slider's air bearing surface, can be one of the practical solution for sub 20 nm flying height, and even for near contact recording. This study investigated the tribological characteristics of a padder slider. A padder slider took off slowly but showed less friction force than a normal slider. The hot/dry CSS test and drag test indicated that pad wear of a padder slider was negligible. The tribological performance of disk is an important factor to be considered. In particular, less carbon overcoat layer of the disk will result in higher stiction and wear in slider/disk interface. In conclusion, a padder slider shows encouraging tribological performances for practical use in HDD.