• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.1-11
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• 2003

The service reliability of power plants strongly depends on the excellent performance and integrity of hydrodynamic bearings. Consequently, the bearings must be properly designed so as to control vibration amplitudes of rotor due to mass unbalance in passing critical speeds and also suppress self-excited vibrations of rotor even over maximum rated speeds. Furthermore, the bearings must be designed so as to maintain required tribological performance even under severe operating conditions. However, various tribological troubles have been experienced in power plants in Japan. The actual troubles are analysed, focusing on not only direct mechanical causes but also specific bearing designs that surfaced the troubles. Furthermore human factors that decided such designs are also studied. The powerful database of troubles and analyses will contribute greatly to designing advanced power plants with enhanced service reliability in the future. To this end, trouble information should be disclosed, shared and transferred limitlessly. Cooperation of users of power plants is essential to making more advanced design specifications, because no one has easier access to operating and trouble information of power plants than users.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.253-261
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• 2020

In this paper, we present an experimental investigation of the frequency characteristics and a visual inspection of an oxidizer pump with a modified rear-floating ring seal for a 7-tonf turbopump. An oxidizer pump typically operates at high rotational speeds and under cryogenic conditions. Despite its low hydraulic efficiency, the floating ring seal is frequently employed as a leakage control solution for turbomachinery because it effectively reduces abrasion by friction. When the oxidizer pump starts up, the floating ring moves excursively but locks up stably against the pump casing when the contact pressure increases. The compressive force on the floating ring depends on the hydrodynamic forces induced by the flow through the floating ring. This force is controlled by the nose position of the floating ring. Based on a validation test for a 7-tonf turbopump with two types of floating rings, we concluded that the floating ring with a small diameter nose can move easily with a low contact pressure in the cooling path. This leads to instability of the pressure fluctuation around the floating ring. In contrast, a floating ring with a large diameter nose has a high contact pressure and attaches strongly to the casing, which causes wear and frictional oxidation between the contact surfaces of the impeller and the floating ring.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.213-221
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• 2022

This paper presents performance measurements of pressure drop and leakage flow rate of test flat seals with asymmetric inclined grooves. This study aims to reveal the influence of groove shapes, often machined in radial film riding-face seals, in forming a hydrodynamic wedge on leakage performance. A test facility was developed, and test seals were manufactured to study the effects of the inlet pressure level, ratio of inlet to outlet pressure, seal groove length, and seal groove height on the steady-state pressure drop and leakage performance. A series of tests were conducted, and the test data were compared to the predictions from a simple and efficient mathematical model using a one-dimensional Reynolds equation. The test results revealed that an increase in the inlet pressure increased the pressure drop through the test seals. The leakage flow rate increased significantly as the inlet pressure and ratio of the inlet to outlet pressure increased. The groove shape also affects seal performance. An increase in the groove length and height resulted in an evident increase in the leakage flow rate. The simple model predictions underestimated the leakage flow rates but showed good agreement with the trend in the measurements for all test operating conditions and changes in the groove shape.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.56-61
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• 1994

Magnetic fluid is ferromagnetic material in liquid state, so the surface configuration of magnetic fluid affects the magnetic field, and vice versa. To analyze the devices with magnetic fluid, the magnetic field equations and hydrodynamic equation should be solved simultaneously. This paper presents the numerical algorithm to obtain the surface configuration of fluid under the influence of gravity, pressure and magnetic field without conventional sim¬plified assumption. The algorithm consists of nonlinear finite element method and ferro-hydrodynamics, such as Poisson equations and Bernoulli equations, respectively The simulated configurations of fluid are compared with experimental results, and the influence of the amount of fluid and pole piece shape on the seal capacities are analyzed.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.61-68
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• 2020

7-tonf turbopump real-propellant tests in Naro Space Center were conducted and high-frequency signals from an accelerometer and pressure sensors installed on the casing and the inlet/outlet pipeline of LOX pump were analyzed to estimate the structural and hydrodynamic stabilities. Waterfalls, frequency spectrums and RMS(Root Mean Square) values of the measured signals were calculated and characteristic instability frequencies by the rotating cavitation and the rear floating ring seal(F.R.S) were investigated. Static pressures of the inlet/outlet pipeline and an acceleration of the pump casing are strongly affected on pressure fluctuation induced by the rear floating ring seal in the leakage path. Despite the acceleration RMS value seems totally small, the rotating-speed-related synchronous frequency affecting the shaft instability is distinctly observed in the frequency contour.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.185-192
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• 2010

The chemical-looping combustion(CLC) has advantages of no energy loss for separation of $CO_2$ without $NO_x$ formation. This CLC system consists of oxidation and reduction reactors where metal oxides particles are circulating through these two reactors. In the present study, the reaction kinetic equations of iron oxide oxygen carriers supported on bentonite have been determined by the shrinking core model. Based on the reactivity data, design values of solid circulation rate and solids inventory were determined for the rector. Two types of interconnected fluidized bed systems were designed for CLC application, one system consists of a riser and a bubbling fluidized bed, and the other one has a riser and two bubbling fluidized beds. Solid circulation rates were varied to about $30kg/m^2s$ by aeration into a loop-seal. Solid circulation rate increases with increasing aeration velocity and it increases further with an auxiliary gas flow into the loop-seal. As solid circulation rate is increased, solid hold up in the riser increases. A typical gas leakage from the riser to the fluidized bed is found to be less than 1%.

• Journal of KSNVE
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.645-653
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• 1997

For high performance rotating machinery, unstable vibrations may occur caused by hydrodynamic forces such as oil film forces, clearance excitation forces generated by the working fluid, and etc. In order to improve the availability one has to take into account the vibrations very accurately. When designing a rotating machinery, the stability behavior and the resonance response can be obtained by calculation of the complex eigenvalues. A suitable modifications of seal and/or bearing design may effectively improve the stability and the response of a rotor system. This paper deals with the optimum length and clearance of seals and bearings to minimize the resonance response(Q factor) and to maximize the logarithmic decrement in the operating speed under the constraints of design variables. Also, for an avoidance of resonance region from the operating speed, an optimization technique has been used to yield the critical speeds as far from the operating speed as possible. The optimization method is used by the genetic algorithm, which is a search algorithm based on the mechanics of natural selection and natural genetics. The results show that the optimum design of seals and bearings can significantly improve the resonance and the stability of the pump rotor system.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.205-214
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• 2010

Many successive liquid-liquid extractions occur enabling purification of the crude material to occur. In high performance counter-current chromatography (HPCCC), crude material is partitioned between two immiscible layers of solvent phases. The stationary phase (SP) is retained by hydrodynamic force field effect and the mobile phase (MP) is pumped through the column. Purification occurs because of the different solubility of the components in the liquid mobile and stationary phases. There are many key benefits of liquid stationary phases such as high mass and volume injection loadings, total sample recovery, and easy scale-up. Many researchers showed that predictable scale-up from simple test is feasible with knowledge of the stationary phase retention for the planned process scale run. In this review we review the recent advances in HPCCC research and also describe the key applications such as natural products and synthetics (small or large molecules).

• Clean Technology
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.69-77
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• 2011

The intrinsic $CO_2$ separation and hydrogen production system is a novel concept using oxidation and reduction reactions of oxygen carrier for both $CO_2$ capture and high purity hydrogen production. The process consists of a fuel reactor (FR), a steam reactor (SR) and an air reactor (AR). The natural gas ($CH_4$) is oxidized to $CO_2$ and steam by the oxygen carrier in FR, whereas the steam is reduced to hydrogen by oxidation of the reduced oxygen carrier in SR. The oxygen carrier is fully oxidized by air in AR. In the present study, the chemical looping moving bed reactor having 200 L/h hydrogen production capacity is designed and the hydrodynamic properties were determined. Compared with other reactors, two moving bed reactors (FR, SR) were used to obtain high conversion and selectivity of the oxygen carrier. The desirable solid circulation rates are calculated to be in the range of $20{\sim}100kg/m^2s$ from the conceptual design. The solid circulation rate can be controlled by aeration in a loop-seal. To maintain the gas velocity in the moving beds (FR, SR) at the minimum fluidization velocity is found to be suitable for the stable operation. The solid holdup in moving beds decrease with increasing gas velocity and solid circulation rate.