• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.69-77
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• 2015

Recently, there have been reports of severe symptoms of wear in bearings due to foreign substances mixed in lubricants. Therefore, studying the effects of foreign substances (such as combustion products and metallic debris) on the wear characteristics of journal bearings and proposing appropriate management standards for lubricant cleanliness have become necessary. Studies on the effect of particle size and concentration of foreign substances on surface damage have actively progressed in the recent times. These studies indicate the possibility of foreign substances causing direct wear of bearing surfaces. However, experiments conducted until now involve only basic tests such as the Pin-on-Disk test instead of those involving real bearing systems. This study experimentally examines the damage to the surface of a journal bearing due to foreign substances (combustion products and alumina) mixed with the lubricant, as well as the effect of the type and size of particles on its wear characteristics. The study uses an experimental journal bearing similar to a real bearing system for conducting the lubrication test. Hydrodynamic Lubrication (HL) numerical analysis, experiment results, and film parameters are used for calculating the operating conditions required for achieving the desired film thickness, and the results of the analysis are modified for considering the surface roughness. The run-time of the experiment is 10 min including the stabilization process. The experiment results show that alumina particles larger than the minimum film thickness cause significant surface damage.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.47-55
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• 2012

Generally, to product multi-grade oil like engine oil, a sort of mineral base oil is mixed with a fundamental additive package liquid and a polymer liquid as viscosity index improver in order to improve the lubricating property of base oil. That is, engine oil is the mixture of more than two fluids. Specially, a polymeric type liquid cannot be seen as the linear viscosity like Newtonian fluids. In this research, by using the governing equation describing non-Newtonian hydrodynamic lubrication related with the mixture of incompressible fluids based on the principle of continuum mechanics, it will be compared the bearing performance between the mixture of each liquid to be blended and multi-grade engine oil as a single fluid in a high speed hydrodynamic journal bearing. Further, it is to be found the way estimating the performance of the blended multi-grade engine lubricant in a journal bearing in advance before blending by using the physical properties of mineral base oil, fundamental additive liquid and polymer liquid of viscosity index improver. So, it can be reduced the number of trial and error to get the wanted lubricant by selecting the proper volume fraction of each liquid to satisfy the expected performance and estimating in advance the performance of various multi-grade oils before blending. Therefore, it can be shorten the developing time and saved the developing cost.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.132-139
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• 2016

The piston of a marine diesel engine works under severe conditions, including a combustion pressure of over 180 bar, high thermal load, and high speed. Therefore, the analyses of the fatigue strength, thermal load, clamping (bolting) system and lubrication performance are important in achieving a robust piston design. Designing the surface profile and the skirt ovality carefully is important to prevent severe wear and reduce frictional loss for engine efficiency. This study performs flexible multi-body dynamic and elasto-hydrodynamic (EHD) analyses using AVL/EXCITE/PU are performed to evaluate tribological characteristics. The numerical techniques employed to perform the EHD analysis are as follows: (1) averaged Reynolds equation considering the surface roughness; (2) Greenwood_Tripp model considering the solid_to_solid contact using the statistical values of the summit roughness; and (3) flow factor considering the surface topology. This study also compares two cases of skirt shapes with minimum oil film thickness, peak oil film pressure, asperity contact pressure, wear rate using the Archard model and friction power loss (i.e., frictional loss mean effective pressure (FMEP)). Accordingly, the study compares the calculated wear pattern with the field test result of the piston operating for 12,000h to verify the quantitative integrity of the numerical analysis. The results show that the selected profile and the piston skirt ovality reduce friction power loss and peak oil film pressure by 7% and 57%, respectively. They also increase the minimum oil film thickness by 34%.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers Conference
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• 2002.10b
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• pp.441-442
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• 2002

Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) is a manufacturing process that uses controlled wear to planarize dielectric and metallic layers on silicon wafers. CMP experiments revealed that a sub-ambient film pressure developed at the wafer/pad interface. Additionally, dishing occurs in CMP processes when the copper-in-trench lines are removed at a rate higher than the barrier layer. In order to study dishing across a stationary wafer during polishing, dishing maps were created. Since dishing is a function of the total contact pressure resulting from the applied load and the fluid pressure, the hydrodynamic pressure model was refined and used in an existing model to study copper dishing. Density maps, highlighting varying levels of dishing across the wafer face at different radial positions, were developed. This work will present the results.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.7-13
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• 2011

Turbine journal bearings are designed to support the weight of the rotors on a hydrodynamic oil film and to provide dynamic stability to the rotor system. The life time of journal bearings is infinite theoretically because the journal bearings are separated from the shaft journal by oil film. But poor design, assembly, operation and maintenance can cause problems to the journal bearings. The FMEA(Failure Mode and Effects Analysis) results of the journal bearings show that frequent maintenance of the journal bearings can cause failures and reduction of the bearing life. Therefore, the maintenance periods and history of the journal bearings with the bearing FMEA results are reviewed in order to establish the optimized maintenance period of the journal bearing for the nuclear power plants. Consequently it is necessary to maintain a best condition of lubrication system, reject time-based maintenance and perform the condition-based maintenance of journal bearings in order to maintain optimum condition of the journal bearing.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.06c
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• pp.281-286
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• 2001

Tilting pad journal bearings have been widely used in a high speed rotating machinery, such as steam turbines and gas turbines, owing to their inherent stability characteristics. However, some peculiar fatigue failure in the babbitt metal due to spragging has been continuously occurred at the leading edge of the upper pads. The spragging is defined as the pad vibration initiated on the upper unloaded pads in a tilting pad journal bearing. This paper describes both several kinds of bearing failure related with spragging and the theoretical investigation on the prevention of the spragging phenomenon using the variation of preload. Results show that positive preload(m>0.5) assures all pads remain statically loaded under all operating conditions. For the change of design parameter to prevent spragging, thermo-hydrodynamic lubrication and rotor dynamic analysis were performed to verify temperature limitation on bearing and vibration problems on rotor bearing system.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.972-975
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• 2002

An understanding of tribological behavior in CMP(Chemical Mechanical Polishing) is one of the most important things to reveal the mechanism of material removal. In CMP, the contact type is thought to be semi-direct, elastohydrodynamic contact type from the Stribeck diagram, which is a combination of solid-solid direct contact and hydrodynamic lubrication with thin liquid film. This study is focused on the decay of friction force during CMP from two points of view, one of which is change of the real contact area and the other is the decrease of the elastic modulus of the pad caused by the increase of the temperature during CMP Experiments are implemented with elastic modulus measuring system and tool dynamometer. Results show that the decay of friction force during CMP results from the decrease of the real contact pressure working on an abrasive, which is induced by the decrease of elastic modulus of pad caused by the increase of temperature. And, the phenomenon is thought to be happen specially in the case that the weight concentration of abrasive in slurry is small enough.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.1886-1896
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• 1991

This paper presents a method to predict the flying height of the head slider in a hard disk drive. Quantitative predicts of the flying height according to the variations of the external load and the disk velocity have been done by numerical computation. In addition, the magnitude of the external load to keep flying height constant were also suggested. The Modified Reynolds' equation driven from hydrodynamic lubrication theory under slip flow condition was used to describe air-bearing system under the slider. To solve the equation, a Finite Volume Method (FVM) has been applied. To determine the final minimum flying height and pitch angle of the head slider, the Secant iteration method is used which update initial guess of the minimum flying height and pitch angle of the slider. In this study, the model head slider has been selected from a real hard disk drive which is equipped in many commercial personal computers. As a result, as the disk velocity increases at constant external load, the minimum flying height and the pitch angle increase due to the in crease of the air-bearing force at the bottom of slider.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.160-165
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• 2016

AISI 4140 steel is widely used in various mechanical components owing to its superior mechanical properties. Surface hardening techniques are often used to further improve the properties, particularly for applications with moving components. The aim of this research is to understand the effect of heat treatment process on surface properties and tribological characteristics of AISI 4140 steel. In this work, we prepare two different AISI 4140 steel specimens- one cooled by air and one by oil- and determine surface properties such as surface topography and roughness using a confocal microscope. We also observe the cross-sections of the specimens using a scanning electron microscope to understand the difference in the material structure. In addition, we assess the hardness with respect to the distance from the surface using a micro-Vickers hardness tester. After characterizing the surfaces of the specimens, we investigate the wear characteristics of the specimens under hydrodynamic lubrication. The results show the presence of grooves on the surface of the oil-cooled specimens. It is likely that such grooves are formed during the cooling process using the oil. However, we observe no other significant differences in the surface properties of the specimens. The wear test results show the occurrence of severe wear on the oil-cooled specimens, which may be due to the groove formed on the surface. The results of this work may be helpful to improve surface properties using surface hardening techniques from a tribological perspective.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.117-124
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• 2021

In this study, we perform a 3D CFD conjugate analysis according to the shape of the foil ramp of the air foil thrust bearing, analyze the flow characteristics inside the bearing, and compare the results corresponding to the two shapes. Air has a lower viscosity than lubricating oil. Therefore, the thrust runner of the bearing must rotate at high speed to support the load. The gap between thrust runner and foil is significantly smaller than that of the oil bearing. Hence, it is crucial to analyze the complex flow characteristics inside the bearing to predict the complex flow inside the bearing and performance of the bearing. In addition, flow characteristics may appear differently depending on the ramp shape of the bearing foil, which may affect bearing performance. In this study, we numerically analyze the main flow path of air flowing into the bearing and the secondary flow path used for cooling the bearing using the commercial CFD software ANSYS CFX and compare the flow characteristics for straight and curved foil ramp shapes. Notably, there is a difference in the speed of the flowing air according to the shape of the ramp, which affects the bearing performance.