Search results

Gas thrust foil bearings (GTFBs) are used to balance the axial load of engines. However, in some working conditions of large axial force, such as the use of single impeller air compressor, the load capacity of GTFBs is still insufficient. To solve this problem, the load capacity can be improved by increasing the stiffness of bump foil. The purpose of this paper is to explore a scheme to effectively improve the performance of thrust foil bearings. In the paper, the stiffness of bump foil is improved by increasing the thickness of bump foil and using double-layer bump foil.

The foil deformation of GTFBs supported by three different types of bump foils, the relationship between friction power consumption and external force and the difference of limited load capacity were measured by experimental method.

The variation of the foil deformation, bearing stiffness, friction power consumption with the external force at different speeds and limited load capacity are obtained. Based on experimental results, the selection scheme of bump foil thickness is obtained.

This paper provides a feasible method for the performance optimization of GTFBs.

Compliant foil thrust bearings are promising bearings for high-speed oil-free turbomachinery. However, most previous experimental and numerical approaches to investigate the performance of these bearings have ignored the effect of bearing runner misalignment. Therefore, this paper aims to evaluate the effects of static and dynamic angular misalignments of the bearing runner on the performance of a gas-lubricated foil thrust bearing.

The bearing runner is allowed a maximum angular misalignment that produces a minimum gas film thickness as low as 20 per cent of the nominal clearance. Then, the variations of bearing load carrying capacity, viscous power loss and stiffness and damping coefficients of the gas film with runner misalignment are thoroughly analyzed. The flow in the gas film is modeled with compressible Reynolds equation along with the Couette approximation technique, and the deformation of the compliant bearing is calculated with a robust analytical model. Small perturbations method is used to calculate the force and moment dynamic coefficients of the gas film.

The results show that misaligned foil thrust bearings are capable of developing a restoring moment sufficient enough to withstand the imposed misalignments. Furthermore, the enhanced hydrodynamic effect ensures a stable operation of the misaligned bearing, and the results highlighted the role of the compliant bearing structure to maintain foil bearing prominent features even at misaligned conditions.

The value of this study is the evaluation of the effects of runner angular misalignments on the static and dynamic characteristics of Generation II bump-type foil thrust bearing.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of different wedge shapes on the performance of air foil thrust bearing (AFTB).

During the study, a bump foil stiffness model considering slip deformation and a two-dimensional sheet top foil model is established, and the Reynolds equation and film thickness equation is solved using the finite difference method and finite element method. The static performance such as load carrying capacity, friction torque and power loss of AFTB under different taper parameters is obtained. The influence of different pitch ratio, film thickness ratio and wedge shapes on the bearing characteristics is studied.

There is an optimal height and a pitch ratio for the taper of AFTB with certain tile number. Compared to the plane and concave wedge shape, the upper convex shape can enhance the convergence effect of the wedge region, increase the effective film pressure distribution area of the bearing and reduce the local concentrated load of the top foil, which is more conductive to the increase of load capacity.

The wedge shape parameters bring a fundamental difference in the static performance of AFTB. The results are expected to be helpful to bearing designers, researchers and academicians concerned.

This study aims to investigate the thermohydrodynamic (THD) and thermoelastohydrodynamic (TEHD) performance of an air-lubricated thrust bearing under different slip conditions, especially the slip length effect.

In this study, a new modified boundary slip model was established to investigate thrust bearing performance. The THD and TEHD bearing characteristic distribution was analyzed with fluid–thermal–structure interaction approach. The effect of the slip length on the bearing performance was studied using various bearing structure parameters.

The increased slip length changed the classical feature distribution of the film pressure and temperature. The sacrifice of the bearing load capacity effectively compensated for the aerodynamic thermal effect and friction torque under the slip condition. The TEHD model has a lower film pressure and load capacity than the THD model. However, it also has lower film temperature, lower friction torque and smaller Knudsen number (Kn).

The bearing THD and TEHD performances of the modified boundary slip model were compared with those of a traditional no-slip bearing. The results help to guide the selection of the bearing surface materials and processing technology of rotor and foil, so as to fully control the degree of slip and make use of it.

The purpose of this paper is to study the characteristics of gas foil conical bearings (GFCBs) considering the misalignment, the static and dynamic performances with different misalignment cases were studied.

A test rig on the air compressor supported by GFCBs has been developed to measure the practicability. A nonlinear bump stiffness model and one-dimensional beam top foil stiffness model were used as a basis for the calculation of static and dynamic performance. The finite element method and finite difference method are adopted to solve the Reynolds equation and the film thickness equation coupled, in which different misalignment cases were considered by changing the film thickness.

The supporting performance of GFCB is excellent, and the film clearance plays a critical role. The misalignment effects depend on the assembled angle and the misalignment angle. The load capacity, friction torque, temperature of GFCB decrease when the misalignment assembled angle is between 120° and 240°, while the dynamic bearing stability is improved. The static and dynamic performances show the opposite law for the other assembled angles, and the misalignment effect is more dramatic when there is a larger misalignment angle. Moreover, the bearing and running parameters largely affect the bearing performance.

The present study focuses on the static and dynamic characteristics of GFCB and investigates the effects of misalignment on the bearing performance.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-04-2020-0117

This paper aims to present a 3D static performance analysis model for the gas foil journal bearing to provide better understanding of the gas foil journal bearing and extend the development of the calculation about the static performance.

The foil bearing can be seen as a shell structure, and the mixed interpolation of tensorial components (MITC) element was used to build the shell model. The augmented Lagrange method was used to calculate the contact involving friction between foils and between the foil and the bearing sleeve. A displacement-controlled load scheme was used to calculate the deformation of the foils. A mapping operator was used to map the film pressure from the gas to the surface of the top foil.

This method provides high precision of calculation in the prediction of the static performance. The calculation results were compared with the experimental data, and they show good agreement. Meanwhile, the model can be applied in the prediction of the bearing performance in a broad range of working conditions.

This method extends the calculation of the gas foil journal bearing to a 3D scale and shows good agreement with the experimental data. Meanwhile, the present model has a good adaptability on the revolution speed and can be applied to the predictions in varied working conditions.

This study aims to investigate the rarefaction effects on flow and thermal performances of an equivalent sand-grain roughness model for aerodynamic thrust bearing.

In this study, a model of gas lubrication thrust bearing was established by modifying the wall roughness and considering rarefaction effect. The flow and lubrication characteristics of gas film were discussed based on the equivalent sand roughness model and rarefaction effect.

The boundary slip and the surface roughness effect lead to a decrease in gas film pressure and temperature, with a maximum decrease of 39.2% and 8.4%, respectively. The vortex effect present in the gas film is closely linked to the gas film’s pressure. Slip flow decreases the vortex effect, and an increase in roughness results in the development of slip flow. The increase of roughness leads to a decrease for the static and thermal characteristics.

This work uses the rarefaction effect and the equivalent sand roughness model to investigate the lubrication characteristics of gas thrust bearing. The results help to guide the selection of the surface roughness of rotor and bearing, so as to fully control the rarefaction effect and make use of it.

To improve the load capacity and stability of gas foil journal bearings (GFJB), this paper aims to propose a novel GFJB with taper-grooved top foil.

A modified bump stiffness model is established considering rounding and friction. By considering the variation of clearance in the circumferential and axial direction, the static and dynamic characteristics of the novel bearing are calculated using the finite difference method, and perturbation method, respectively. The bearing performance under different groove parameters is studied and compared to the traditional bearings.

The results show that this novel GFJB can bring multi-extra local dynamic pressure and decrease the gas end leakage, which improves the static and dynamic properties. Moreover, as the increment of groove depth, the load capacity and direct stiffness are reinforced. There is an optimal groove width to maximize the load capacity, and the taper-groove is more beneficial to the improvement of bearing performance than other groove shapes. For the novel GFJB (Ng = 6, Hg = 10µm), the load capacity and direct stiffness increase by about 6.67 and 13.5 per cent, respectively. The stability threshold speed (STS) of a rotor supported by the novel bearings is also increased.

The performance of the presented novel GFJB is enhanced immensely compared to the traditional bearings, and the results are expected to be helpful to bearing designers, researchers and academicians concerned.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-08-2019-0307.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of the rounding in bump foil on the static performance of air foil journal bearings.

During the study, the bending moment of the new foil structure with rounding is proposed, and the bump foil stiffness is obtained from the elastic deformation energy theory. The validity of the presented foil model is verified through comparison with previous models. The static characteristics of foil bearings such as film thickness and attitude angle are obtained using a fully coupled elastic-gas algorithm and are compared to models with various rounding radius and friction coefficients.

There is an optimal rounding radius that makes the stiffness of bump foil maximum. As the static load increases, the minimum film thickness is proportional to the rounding radius but the attitude angle is inversely proportional. The effect of rounding with a large friction coefficient becomes negligible.

The rounding brings fundamental difference in the structural stiffness and static performance of foil bearings. The results are expected to be helpful to bearing designers, researchers and academicians concerned.

The breakdown of laminar flow in the clearance space of a journal is considered, and the point of transition is considered in relation to experiments carried out with ‘bearings’ of large clearance. Experiments involving flow visualization with very large clearance ratios of 0.05 to 0.3 show that the laminar regime gives way to cellular or ring vertices at the critical Reynolds number predicted by G. I. Taylor for concentric cylinders even in the presence of an axial flow and at a rather higher Reynolds number in the case of eccentric cylinders. The effect of the transition on the axial flow between the cylinders is small. The critical speed for transition as deduced by Taylor, is little affected by moderate axial flows and is increased by eccentricity. The effect of critical condition on the axial‐flow characteristics of the bearing system appears to be negligible, again for moderate axial flows. Assuming that the results can be extrapolated to clearances applicable to bearing operation, the main conclusion of this paper is that the breakdown of laminar flow, which is a practical possibility in very high‐speed bearings, is delayed by eccentric operation.