• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.22-28
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• 1993

The experimental investigation on the inlet pressure of a large tilting pad journal bearing is studied. The continuous distribution of the film pressure and film thickness are measured along with the shaft speed and bearing load for various flow rates. Considerably large inlet pressure is observed at the entrance of each pad, especially lower pads. The inlet pressure increases with the increase of shaft speed as well as bearing load, but it is almost independent on the folw rate and the oil supply temperature. Because of the inlet pressure, the upper pads always keep up slight wedge film shape which are almost parallel to the journal surface, and spragging is not observed in the upper pads with no preload.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.64-69
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• 2012

This paper deals with the study on repair case of journal shaft and bearing damage in 25MW industrial gas turbine caused by sudden blackout, operation mistake, and logic abnormal, etc. When a serious accident such as journal and bearing damage in a gas turbine occurs, the domestic local companies having the gas turbine are dependent on manufacturer for all maintenance and repair schedule until now. This case study shows that the damaged gas turbine is normally re-operated itself in domestic by establishing repair schedule in a short period of time, repairing damage journal shaft and tilting pad bearings, and performing rotating test for a reliability check. This paper can be regarded as the important case study of emergency test run experience of the refurbished 25MW gas turbine rotor.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers Conference
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• 1999.06a
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• pp.325-330
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• 1999

The dynamic behavior analysis of air-lubricated tilting pad journal bearing which considers start-up, running and shutdown Process were performed. By carrying out the experiment of shaft vibration, measurement of the vibration amplitudes supported by air lubricated tilting pad bearing and analysis of the result, we found more accurate dynamic behavior of the system. There were many investigations in these bearings, but dynamic behavior of startup, shutdown and running process were lacked. By using the experimental data we found the accurate dynamic behavior of the system.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.9-14
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• 2017

This paper presents a rotordynamic analysis and the operation of a power turbine applied to a 250 kW super-critical $CO_2$ cycle. The power turbine consists of a turbine wheel and a shaft supported by two fluid film bearings. We use a tilting pad bearing for the power turbine owing to the high speed operation, and employ copper backing pads to improve the thermal management of the bearing. We conduct a rotordynamic analysis based on the design parameters of the power turbine. The dynamic coefficients of the tilting pad bearings were calculated based on the iso-thermal lubrication theory and turbine wheel was modeled as equivalent inertia. The predicted Cambell diagram showed that there are two critical speeds, namely the conical and bending critical speeds under the rated speed. However, the unbalance response prediction showed that vibration levels are controlled within 10 mm for all speed ranges owing to the high damping ratio of the modes. Additionally, the predicted logarithmic decrement indicates that there is no unstable mode. The power turbine uses compressed air at a temperature of $250^{\circ}C$ in its operation, and we monitor the shaft vibration and temperature of the lubricant during the test. In the steady state, we record a temperature rise of $40^{\circ}C$ between the inlet and outlet lubricant and the measured shaft vibration shows good agreement with the prediction.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.177-182
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• 2015

Tapered roller bearings are widely used in equipment where high combined thrust and radial loads are experienced. A certain amount of tilting between the tapered rollers and the races always occurs because of bending moment load conditions and shaft deflection. It is now well understood that a coherent elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) film separates the rollers and races. In spite of extensive study on EHL problems for over half a century, relatively few studies have focused on the finite line contacts problem. This study presents a complete numerical analysis of the effects of roller tilting on the EHL characteristics in a tapered roller bearing. We systematically analyze this highly nonlinear problem using finite differences with fully non-uniform grids and the Newton-Raphson method. Detailed EHL pressure distributions and film shapes are presented under moderate loads and material parameters. A very small roller tilting significantly affects the pressure distributions and film shapes near both ends of the roller. Moreover, the effect of tilting on the EHL characteristics at the small end is much greater than that at the large end. Therefore, in designing optimum profiles for tapered roller bearings, the profile radius should be larger at the small end.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.30-38
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• 1994

The thermohydrodynamic(THD) performance of a large tilting pad journal bearing is investigated both theoretically and experimentally. The theory takes into account the three dimensional variation of lubricant viscosity and eddy viscosity, and the inlet pressure. Owing to the inlet pressure effect, the film pressure and load capacity are increased but the mixing temperature and bearing surface temperature are decreased. The continuous distribution of the film pressure and film thickness and the bearing surface temperature are measured along with the shaft speed and the bearing load, and they are compared with the theoretical results. The results obtained by the experiment are in good agreement with those by the theory including the inlet pressure effect. It is suggested that the three dimensional turbulent THD analysis including the inlet pressure effect is very useful to predict the performance of the large tilting pad journal bearing more accurately.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.168-186
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• 2017

This paper presents a wear analysis procedure for calculating the wear of journal bearings during the start-up and coast-down cycles of a motoring stripped-down single cylinder engine operating with a tilted shaft. In order to decide whether the lubrication state of a journal bearing is in the mixed-elasto-hydrodynamic lubrication regime, we utilize lift-off speed and MOFT (most oil film thickness) under mixed-elasto-hydrodynamic lubrication regime at the corresponding aligned shaft. We formulate an equation for the modified film thickness in a misaligned journal bearing considering the additional wear volume described in Part I of this study. For this, we use the calculation results of the degree of misalignment and tilting angle obtained after finding the eccentricities of the two bearings supporting the crankshaft of a single cylinder engine. In this Part II, we calculate the wear of journal bearings using the fractional film defect coefficient, the asperity load sharing factor, and the modified specific wear rate for the application of mixed-elasto-hydrodynamic lubrication regime. We show that the accumulated wear volume after turning the ignition switch on and off once, increases to ${\sigma}=39{\mu}m$ and then decreases from ${\sigma}=39{\mu}m$ with increasing in surface roughness.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.27-33
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• 2020

Self-equalizing tilting pad thrust bearings are usually employed in turbomachines to achieve high stability and reliability. A tilting pad bearing can incorporate self-equalizing links to handle the misalignment between the bearing and the thrust collar. In this popular design method, the pads sit on the upper-level plates and the lower-level plates stay on the retainer base. With misalignment, the pads that are heavily loaded are pushed down. Consequently, the link pushes up the pads on the opposite side, keeping the bearing surface parallel to the thrust collar surface. The self-equalizing link is used to handle the misalignment from the thermal and mechanical effects. In this study, the experimental investigation deals with the performance of self-equalizing tilting pad thrust bearings. The test rig for evaluating the performance of bearing is developed which can control the misalignment angle. Simultaneous measurements are taken for the force acting on each pad. Pad metal temperature and oil film thickness are functions of the shaft speed, bearing load, misalignment angle, and design of leveling plates. The effect of misalignment on bearing performance is discussed. The results demonstrate that the load on each pad depends on the test conditions(especially misalignment angle), and the load influences the performance of bearings.

• International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.87-94
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• 2002

This paper presents the synchronous vibration control of a rotor system using an Active Air Bearing(AAB). In order to suppress the synchronous vibration, it is necessary to actively control the air film pressure or the air film thickness. In this study, active pads are used to control the air film thickness. Active pads are supported by the pivots containing piezoelectric actuators and their radial positions can be actively controlled by applying voltage to the actuators. Disturbances and various kinds of external forces can cause the shaft vibration as well as the change of the air film thickness. The dynamic behaviors of a rotary system supported by two tilting-pad gas bearings and its active stabilization using the tilting-pads as actuators are investigated numerically. The PID controller is applied to the tilting-pad gas bearing system with three pads, two of which contain piezoelectric actuators. To test the validity of the theoretical method, the performance of this control method is evaluated through experiments. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the control system for suppressing the unbalanced response of the rigid modes.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.112-118
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• 2017

Tilting pad journal bearings(TPJBs) are widely used for high speed rotating machinery owing to their rotordynamic stability and thermal management feature. With increase in the rotating speed of such machinery, an increasingly important aspect of TPJB design is the prediction of their thermal behaviors. Researchers have conducted detailed investigations in the last two decades, which provided design tools for the TPJBs. Based on these previous studies, this paper presents a thermohydrodynamic(THD) analysis model for TPJBs. To calculate pressure distribution, we solve the generalized Reynolds equation and to predict the lubricant temperature, we solve the 3D energy equation. We employ the oil mixing theory to calculate pad inlet temperature; further, to consider heat conduction via the pad, we solve the heat conduction equation for the pads. We assume the shaft temperature as the averaged oil film temperature and apply natural convection boundary conditions to the pad side and back surfaces. To validate the analysis model, we compare the predicted pad temperatures with those from previous research. The results show good agreement with previous research. In addition, we conduct parametric studies on a TPJB which was used in a gas turbine simulator system. The predicted results show that film temperature largely depends on the rotating speed and oil supply condition.