• 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.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.281-288
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• 2003

In this paper, seismic responses of large tilting pad journal bearings which have $3\~5$ tilting pads were numerically analyzed. The turbulent lubrication equation, the energy equation and motion equation were solved at each time step. The regime of operation of this bearing is laminar, turbulent and transitional. Also viscosity of working fluid was considered as function of only temperature and inlet pressure build-up was considered. Numerical results for a large tilting pad journal bearing showed journal center, maximum temperature, maximum pressure, friction torque. The relationship of bearing response and seismic intensity are discussed.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.265-271
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• 2012

In the preceding Part I study, for improving the unbalance response vibration of a large PRT motor-generator rotor fundamentally by design, a series of design analyses were carried out for bearing improvement by retrofitting from original plain partial journal bearings, applied for operation at a rated speed of 1,800 rpm, to final tilting pad journal bearings. To satisfy evenly key basic lubrication performances such as the minimum lift-off speed and maximum oil-film temperature, a design solution of 5-pad tilting pad journal bearings and maximizing the direct stiffness by about two times has been achieved. In this Part II study, a detailed rotordynamic analysis of the large PRT motor-generator rotor-bearing system will be performed, applying both the original plain partial journal bearings and the retrofitted tilting pad journal bearings, to confirm the effect of rotordynamic vibration improvement after retrofitting. The results show that the rotor unbalance response vibrations with the tilting pad journal bearings are greatly reduced by as much as about one ninth of those with the plain partial journal bearings. In addition, for the tilting pad journal bearings there exist no critical speed up to the rated speed and just one instance of a concerned critical speed around the rated speed, whereas for the plain partial journal bearings there exist one instance of a critical speed up to the rated speed and two instances of concerned critical speeds around the rated speed.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.2 no.2 s.3
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• pp.32-38
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• 1999

An experimental study is performed to investigate the frequency effects of the excitation force on the linear stiffness and damping coefficients of a LOP (load on pad) type five-pad tilting pad journal bearing with the diameter of 300.91 mm and the length of 149.80 mm. The main parameter of interest in the present work is excitation frequency to shake the test bearing. The excitation frequency is controlled independently, using orthogonally mounted hydraulic exciters. The relative movement between the bearing and shaft, and the acceleration of the bearing casing are measured as a function of excitation frequency using the different values of bearing load and shaft speed. Measurements show that the variation of excitation frequency has quite a little effect on both stiffness and damping coefficients. Both direct stiffness and damping coefficients in the direction of bearing load decrease by the increase of shaft speed, but increase with the bearing load.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.152-156
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• 2004

The present paper theoretically investigates characteristics of moment balance of a tilting-pad thrust bearing. Pressure of lubricant film of the bearing was computed using the finite element method, and average film temperature was estimated from the heat balance over a pad. From the investigation, it has been found that different two sets of tilt angles satisfy moment equilibrium of the pad about the pivot for a given pivot location. The tilt angles converged depend upon initial tilt angles assumed. Quite different bearing performance, including load capacity, film thickness, and temperature, is shown to be obtained based on choice of the initial tilt angles.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.29-35
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• 1996

The static and dynamic stability analysis of air-lubriceted tilting pad journal bearing which considers tilting effect of each pad and preload but neglects pad inertia were performed. And these characteristic analysis were performed with elasticity effect too. A direct numerical method is used in calculating the static characteristics such as load carrying capacity, firction force and perturbation method is used for calculation of dynamic characteristics. The stability analysis was performed with the variation of bearing number, eccentricity ratio and attitude angle considering pad elasticity effect.

• Composites Research
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.111-116
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• 2016

The tilting pad journal bearing for the turbo compressor application has a role to support high speed and heavy loading rotor. White metal has been widely used for the bearing material but the conventional bearing is immediately suspended and induces serious serious damage to the rotor under the unexpected oil cut situation or the insufficient oil film formation. The carbon fiber reinforced composite having high specific stiffness, specific strength and excellent tribological characteristics can solve these seizure problems. In this work, the study on the durability of high thermal resistance carbon fiber/epoxy composite tilting pad journal bearing under oil cut situation was conducted. The material properties of the composite materials including tensile, compressive and interlaminar properties were measured at room and high temperature of oil cut situation. To investigate the possibility of failure of composite tilting pad journal bearing under oil cut situation, the stress distribution of the composite bearing was analyzed via finite element analysis and the Tsai-Wu Failure index was calculated. To verify the failure analysis results, the oil cut tests for the composite tilting pad journal bearing were conducted using industrial test bench.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.268-272
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• 2023

This study explores the characteristics of tilting pad journal bearings used in the high-speed rotating shaft systems of centrifugal compressors. A centrifugal compressor is a high-speed rotating machine that is widely used to compress gases or vapors employed in various industrial applications. It transfers the centrifugal force of a fast-spinning impeller to the fluid and compresses it under high pressure. Many high-speed rotating shaft systems, which require high stability, use tilting pad journal bearings. The characteristics of these bearings can vary depending on several properties, and identifying the appropriate characteristics is essential to optimize the design on a case-to-case basis. In this study, the authors perform a time-dependent analysis of the properties of tilting pad journal bearings and the rotordynamics of the rotating shaft system using COMSOL Multiphysics software. Specifically, the authors analyze the characteristics of the tilting pad journal bearings by performing a parametric sweep using parameters such as pad clearance, maximum tilting angle, preload, number of pads, and pad pivot offset. The authors then use the results of the bearing-characteristics analysis to evaluate the vibration of the rotating shaft and verify its operation within a desirable range. The understanding gained from this study will allow us to determine the optimal properties of these bearings and the limiting operational speed using COMSOL Multiphysics software.

• 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.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.