Modeling and Experimental Investigation of Oil Film Pressure Distribution for Hydrodynamic Thrust Bearing

Thi Thanh Hai Tran1, , Trong Thuan Luu1
1 Hanoi University of Science and Technology – No. 1, Dai Co Viet, Hai Ba Trung, Hanoi

Main Article Content

Abstract

For many mechanical equipment such as hydropower turbines, steam turbines and propeller shafts, external load can be up to thousands of tons. For designing bearings of these mechanical systems in boundary lubrication and mixed lubrication absorbing axial forces might not be feasible, particularly when these mechanisms change into hydrodynamic or hydrostatic lubrication. In lubrication mechanisms the Reynolds with boundary conditions and appropriate effects must be solved for the lubrication characteristics. Besides, it is essential to create properly experimental equipment for investigating these characteristics such as film pressure, temperature for validating with the solutions of the Reynolds equation. This paper presents a computational modeling of a thrust bearing using the standard finite element method and an experimental study of lubrication analysis of the bearing. The results show that the pressure distributions in terms of load and speed of the numerical model are correlated with ones of the experimental data.

Article Details

References

[1] J. Frêne, D. Nicolas, B. Degueurce, D. Berthe, M. Godet, Hydrodynamic Lubrication: Bearings and Thrust Bearings, Elsevier. Amsterdam, (1997).
[2] A.L. Brown, J.B. Medley, J.H. Ferguson, Spring-supported thrust bearings used in hydroelectric generators: Limit of hydrodynamic lubrication, Tribology Series, Volume 38, (2000).
[3] M. Zakir Hossain and M. Mahbubur Razzaque, Load Capacity of a Grooved Circular Step Thrust Bearing. ASME J. Tribol, (2013).
[4] Franck Balducchi, Mihaï Arghir, Romain Gauthier and Emelyne Renard, Experimental Analysis of the Start-Up Torque of a Mildly Loaded Foil Thrust Bearing, ASME J. Tribol, (2013)
[5] Yin Song1, Xiao Ren, Chun-wei Gu, Xue-song Li, Experimental and Numerical Studies of Cavitation Effects in a Tapered Land Thrust Bearing. ASME J. Tribol, (2014).
[6] Zeng-rong. Hao, Chun-wei Gu, Numerical modeling for gaseous cavitation of oil film and non-equilibrium dissolution effects in thrust bearings, Tribology International, Volume 78, (2014), 14-26.
[7] Nguyễn Đình Tân, Lưu Trọng Thuận, Trần Thị Thanh Hải, Xây dựng chương trình tự động tính toán bôi trơn ổ đỡ có xét đến sự gián đoạn của màng dầu. Tạp chí cơ khí Việt Nam, (2014).